The Triggermen - Chapter Four

For your entertainment, a serialized novella available only here on the Scary Parent.


Chapter Four


In the next twenty minutes, three more planes fall out of the sky.

After the jet that goes down in the direction of Hershey, one drops farther off to the south, perhaps five miles away. By that time the crowds of people in what remain of Boone’s condo community are staring up with the blanched, seasick expressions of spectators at some apocalyptic fireworks display, watching the expanse for whatever will come next. The shock of what’s happening has not yet worn off, and it will still be fifteen minutes before the first mass panic begins.

The next plane is even more distant, just a glint in the eastern horizon. Somebody in the crowd points to it and said, “There’s one,” and there’s another boom. The third crash is almost as far off, this time in the direction of Middletown. As it falls, Boone hears a man’s voice say, “Jesus, that one went down right over TMI.”
Three Mile Island, ten miles from here. More than anything, that’s what does it. Standing far behind the flame-crackling condo with his brother and Mara Wilson, Boone feels panic broadening around him from an eddy to a whirlpool into a maelstrom, a terrible, sloping sense of danger without any perceivable limit. The same panic ripples through the crowd around him. TMI is safe, has been safe since the 70s, but the reassurances of local authorities suddenly mean little as thick black and gray smoke starts pouring upward in the sky, from the direction of the reactors.

Somewhere across the green, a woman shrills, “Get out of my way!” She slams into Boone from behind, clacking his teeth together and knocking him to his hands and knees in the warm grass. Sitting up, he sees it is none other than Lois Crane, she of the bronze velour and neighborly haranguing, car keys already in hand, sprinting faster than Boone has ever seen her move, across what remains of the common area. Her hips wobble furiously in her pantsuit. She cuts through the line of firefighters, around the fire—it has now consumed the entire block of condos—evidently heading toward the parking lot on the other side and the Jeep she keeps parked there. She bought the Jeep a year ago, after her beleaguered husband’s death (privately Boone has always suspected the poor bastard offed himself), and subsequent life insurance policy, allowed her to quit her job and devote all her time to being everyone’s least favorite pain in the ass.

Lois’ flight seems to trigger an almost physical spasm of realization among the residents of Stone Cliff. All at once, people whose condos are still on the safe side of the development begin backing up, a tide of bodies moving in a loose but unified wave. Boone watches them running back to their houses now, or going directly to their cars in the lot on the other side. He already hears engines starting, people shouting at each other, swearing, screaming, a woman squalling, “Just get your brother and get in the car!” Almost simultaneously, two children on two opposite sides of the common begin to cry in high, frightened voices.

He looks down at Andy, who is still standing perfectly still next to Mara, his face still queerly expressionless. “My car keys,” Boone hears himself say. “They were in the house.”

Mara gives him an appalled look. “Why is everybody running?”

“They think Three Mile Island got hit,” he says. “But if it did—”

“What?”

“It won’t make any difference now. It’s too late.”

“Boone, what’s happening?”

“I’m not sure.” Of course there’s only one idea in his mind, and she gets it out before he does.

“It’s terrorists, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know.” But this sounds so much like an obvious lie to tell a child that he can’t keep himself from adding, “Probably, I guess.”

“What are we going to do?” she asks, clutching her backpack with both hands. “I want my mom.”

“Come on.” He grabs Andy’s hand and gestures Mara in the direction of his retreating neighbors. On the far side of the lawn, just within the range of perceptible detail, Boone sees a silver-haired man in a pale green cabana shirt and khakis. The man is walking swiftly around the front of a white SUV, talking into a cell phone with the studied perseverance of a man who spends a great deal of time doing exactly this.

“Grant!” Boone shouts, pulling Andy and Mara with him. Mara is keeping pace with him easily but Andy lags, stiff-legged, unresponsive, practically staggering to keep up.

Grant St. Pierre glances up from his cell phone, with no recognition in his eyes. He is the real estate agent that sold Boone the condo here, six years ago, and a resident of the community as well. He and Boone often see each other driving up and down Oxford Court and give each other the wave.

“Listen,” Boone said, catching his breath, “can we ride out with you? My keys were in our house.”

“I’m headed west,” Grant says. His civilized gray eyes are fixed on the sky and never stop moving, though his voice is still relatively calm, and he sounds like he might actually remember who Boone is. “My daughter’s in Pittsburgh. I’m meeting her halfway there.”

“What did she say it’s like there?”

“The same. More planes down. They’re saying it’s nationwide.”

“What do you think it is?”

Grant still doesn’t look at him. “Some kind of attack. Somebody jamming the navigational systems or something. I heard one landed on the White House lawn. Probably bullshit but...” He opens the driver’s side door. “You can ride with me if you want but I’m not stopping till I find Jess.”

“Where does your mother work?” Boone asks Mara.

“The Hotel Hershey.”

“I’ll drop you at 422,” Grant says, “but I’m not going any further out of my way.” He doesn’t wait for Boone’s reaction before starting the engine, and Boone opens the back door so Mara could jump in.

“Andy, let’s go.” He shoves his brother into the back and climbs in next to him, still pulling the door shut as Grant swings the SUV around backward so fast the headachy smell of hot rubber comes seeping up through the floorboards. Around them the lot behind Grant’s part of the development has already become one gigantic circuit board of cars blasting their horns and trying to get around each other. Up ahead Boone sees traffic bottlenecked at the exit, people slamming bumpers and rear-ending one another, nobody waiting his or her turn.

“Hold on,” Grant says, reversing until they face the far end of the lot and the cornfield beyond it. He floors it, following the half-dozen other vehicles that have opted to drive overland through the field out to High Meadow Road.

“What that?” Boone says.

And then he sees. Across the field, through the cloud of dust kicked up by the cars, a long line of black vans have stopped to form a blockade in front of High Meadow Road. From here Boone can see a man in a long black leather coat and sunglasses standing on top of one of the vans. “Who the hell is that?”

Grant doesn’t reply, but Boone can feel him slowing down already. Two of the other cars driving through the field have also slowed, but the other two, a silver Taurus and a beige Jeep that looks fresh from the showroom, are still barreling straight at the row of vans, faster than ever. He doesn’t know who owned the Taurus, but he knows Lois Crane is behind the wheel of the Jeep. In what cannot possibly be mere happenstance, the Jeep’s gleaming bronze color matches her velour pantsuit perfectly.

That’s when the man standing on top of the van raises his rifle and brings the stock to his shoulder, siting down the scope at the oncoming cars.