The Art of Hero Worship (2 page)

Pop-pop-pop… pop-pop-pop….

“Are we going to die?” I’m not sure if I ask
this or if it comes from the lips of the little old lady who’d been
sitting on the other side of Ginny at the start of the play. The
old lady who told us she’d come to Batcheldor College’s Harrison
Theater tonight to see her granddaughter play Ophelia in the
Shakespeare in the Spring Performance Series
; not to die in
a hail of bullets. I know for a fact that Ginny didn’t ask the
question, though. She’s been silent since the second volley of
gunshots when her head slumped over unnaturally onto my shoulder,
and almost by instinct, I’d pulled her to the floor.

Batcheldor College’s small theater has been
called “an acoustic gem” and right now it’s ringing with the
erratic sounds of screaming and moaning and crying and shouting and
shooting. But most impressive is the resounding silence of the
gunman, which speaks louder than words, or gunshots, ever
could.

All-in-all, it’s fucking noisy and confusing
and crazy… the Beatles’ tune “Helter Skelter” comes to mind. This
is not how I want to die. Mostly because
I don’t want to
die!

The guy on my back is poking a single finger
into the blood on my head, then twisting in such a way that I think
he’s reaching to his back… like maybe he’s smearing my blood on his
back. I’m distracted from his action by the squealing of the fire
alarm in the darkness, and I find my blurry mind wondering if, in
addition to the problem of a crazed gunman, we also have a fire to
put out.

Would I prefer my death be a result of
hungry flames or a hail of bullets?

“We’re gonna survive, just stay still.
Completely still. ‘Kay?” I feel the pressure on my back that he
promised me, and even though it hurts to have my belly pushed into
the metal rungs at the base of the seats in front of us, I feel
strangely safe. He speaks into my ear. “Play dead, dude.”

Pop-pop-pop….

No, I’m not even remotely safe. But
thankfully I play dead far better than my dog did when I taught him
that trick at the age of seven.

The shots are earsplitting and getting
louder because the shooter’s heading our way. I’m so fucking scared
I’m trembling violently, but I promised the guy lying on top of me
that I’d stay still. I concentrate on taking short shallow breaths,
one after another, in my effort to stop trembling. To stay
frozen—like I’ve been since I pulled Ginny to the floor and
promptly let go of her hand so I could curl up into a tight fetal
ball.

Somebody near me sits up, scrambles to his
knees, and impulsively crawls toward the far aisle.

Pop-pop-pop…

“Bang, bang… you’re dead.” The voice comes
from directly above me; it’s blank and monotone and controlled. The
weird snicker that follows is chilling. I want nothing more than to
throw the big guy off my back and run like hell toward the double
doors, but I just keep on going with the short breaths and stay as
still as I’ve ever been in my life. Even in my terrified state, I
know that the guy on top of me is totally exposed and I can’t move
because I’ll cheat him out of his life, for sure. Which is
so
not cool when he’s trying to save mine.

I smell blood. Never noticed the smell of
blood before. It reminds me of Grandma’s penny collection… if it
got spilled onto the sticky floor of the theater. The scent of old
copper is everywhere… like wet pennies strewn all around me on the
floor.

Pop-pop-pop…

Shooter’s right above us now.
Don’t move…
don’t move… don’t move….

“Dear God, help us!” This request seems to
catch the shooter’s attention and he turns around and steps away
from us. I curse myself for feeling as relieved, and maybe even
glad, as I do.

Pop-pop-pop….

We wait and it seems like forever. We wait
as voices beg and plead and pray and he shuts them up with bullets.
We wait as the sound of shots moves to the front left near the
exit, where I figure he’s shooting at anyone who tries to get out
through the double doors.

And then, for a second, it’s quiet.

“Now….” The big guy’s voice is whispering
but it seems to blast into my left ear. “We have to make our move
now
.” Before I agree, the heaviness of his body lifts and I
feel cold and exposed. “This is our chance to get outta here….”

His hand is attached to the back of my
wrist, clutching me so hard that I know I’ll have fingerprint
bruises for a week… if I live so long.

“Come on! Get up!”

“Ginny…” I whisper back. “I can’t leave
Ginny.”

He reaches out to touch the flesh mound in
the center of the pool of blood and whispers firmly, “Ginny’s
already gone.” He releases my wrist just long enough to adjust his
grip. “I worked here last year. I know how to get away.
Come
on….”

He pulls me up to my knees and drags me
behind him. “Ginny.” But I only think her name this time because
I’m literally too petrified to speak. We crawl like two sneaky
toddlers through the narrow alley between the rows of seats and
then down the outside aisle, over a couple of bodies—small ones,
kids bodies that are way too still and cool—and to a trap door at
the base of the stage. It’s a small gray square in the wall. I
never noticed it before and I’ve been to the Harrison Theater at
least five times this year to see Ginny’s roommate perform. The guy
beside me pulls out a pocketknife and fiddles silently with the
screws holding the little door in place.

Pop-pop-pop….

The thin slab of metal covering the small
door drops to the floor and contributes a new sound to the quieting
chaos. It clangs in such a way that nobody left alive in the
theater could miss it.

“Where do you think you’re going?” The
gunman has stopped shooting and I hear the heavy stomping of combat
boots coming toward us, down the aisle. Not running… just walking
in swift, determined steps. My guardian angel grabs me and stuffs
me through the opening in the base of the stage. I land on my chin
in what seems to be a pile of music stands. My helper isn’t far
behind in squeezing his bulky frame through the small square in the
wall. We seem to have landed in some type of a cluttered crawl
space, maybe the orchestra pit, and I struggle to make my way
through what I assume are metal music stands. When we’re halfway
through the mess, now crawling through unruly stacks of folding
chairs, the overhead light in the pit flicks on.

“What’s going on in the theater, you guys?
It’s mega-loud in there.” A clueless college girl’s voice. I can’t
see her clearly because the sudden bright light stings my eyes,
making me squint.

“Get out of here, lady—just run for it!”
shouts my guardian angel. We can’t run yet because we’re still
trapped among metal chairs.

“I see you two…. I see you.” It’s that
deadly calm shooter’s voice again. “And I think I
know
you.”

Pop-pop-pop….

For some reason he doesn’t climb into the
orchestra pit to come after us but pushes the gun through the small
opening and pulls the trigger three times. Bullets ricochet off the
metal chairs and stands. Again I freeze, not sure which way to go.
I’m grabbed fiercely by my right forearm and dragged over the
remainder of the metal chairs to the door, where the clued-in girl
is no longer standing.

I expect more shooting, but there’s none.
Instead, that cold, creepy voice increases in volume, to assure us,
“Don’t worry, I’ll find you….”

We take to our feet and start to run. Soon
we’re holding hands in a narrow hallway… running for the back of
the building… and then we’re outside in the cool darkness, still
clinging to each other. We sprint through the muddy grass in the
direction of the parking lot.

We stop at an old model, cherry red muscle
car—a Dodge Charger.

“Get in!” His voice is husky as he opens the
door, pushes me inside, and quickly shuts it. Then he scrambles
over the hood to get to the driver’s side. He flings open the door
and jumps into the driver’s seat, not gracefully, but with more
speed than I could ever have imagined was possible for a guy his
size. I guess adrenaline counts for a lot. And soon we’re driving
off the college grounds, out of the supposed safety of the
“Batcheldor College Bubble,” and into the real world.

A couple of blocks from the theater, the big
guy pulls his car over to the side of Main Street because a whole
slew of screaming police cars are coming toward us, in the
direction of the theater, but I yell at him, “No! K-keep driving!”
I’m breathing so fast I can hardly get the words out, yet I have to
make this stranger understand me. Because we can’t stop moving
yet.

“We have to tell the cops about what we
know… and plus, your head, man… you’re like
covered
in blood
and….” He’s still driving, but he’s doing it more slowly than I’d
like, and he’s peering at me every couple of seconds with
freaked-out eyes, probably for more reasons than one. “I just wanna
make sure you’re okay… you know… looks like you might’ve got shot
on the top of your head and….”

I’m dizzy as hell and ready to throw up, and
I have no idea why my head is bleeding so much, but I know one
thing for sure—I can’t let him stop driving now, or maybe ever.
“N-n-n….” I fail at my first attempt to form a word. “P-p-p…
P-p-please….”

“’Kay, dude….” He sighs long and loud, and I
look at him—I mean, I really study him—for the first time. He’s
well over six feet tall, rugged with blond hair cut in a style that
stands up off his head a few inches with a long, squared-off beard.
And on his broad cheek, between thick, black- rimmed glasses and a
radical, full beard, is a smear of blood that either starts or ends
on the bridge of his nose. The overall effect is
chic lumberjack
badass who barely survived
a dangerous encounter with an
oversized tree
. Not that this observation makes any difference
to our desperate situation.

“You know we’ve gotta go to the police soon…
you know that, right?” His voice is deep and gruff, and he seems
nervous, but then, under the circumstances, who, in his right mind,
wouldn’t be?

I don’t respond. I actually can’t because
I’m going to be sick. I roll down the window and hang my head out
in a feeble attempt to vomit on the street as it rolls by. I’m only
half successful and I feel bad for messing up this guy’s pristine
car. My head is spinning with dizzying memories of gunshots and the
smell of pennies and dark images of death in a small college
theater. And thoughts of Ginny….

No—I push her face from my mind because I’m
not yet ready to accept what a large part of me knows to be true.
“Can’t we… c-can’t we k-keep on driving? Can’t w-we?”

The big blond guy slows the car down and
examines me carefully with wide dark eyes. “You look like shit… I…
uh… think you might be in shock or something.” He stops the car and
turns it around, then he heads down a nearby side street. “Look, I
know a place we can go and you can get yourself together. But as
soon as you’re cool with everything we gotta go to the cops. We
have to tell them about Dom.”

“Not to th-the dorms. Not going to th-the
dorms.” Now I’m repeating myself. I’m a hot mess.

“No, I don’t think that would be too smart
because Dom said he knows us and he probably also knows we live in
RetroHouse and… and he might decide to….
Jesus!”
The fact
that we’re in danger hits him hard. “Not gonna let him hurt you,
man.
”

I’m strangely warmed by my self-appointed
guardian’s protectiveness, but also distracted by the name Dom…
Domenic DeSalles.
It’s the name that fleetingly visited my
brain earlier tonight when the slaughter started. And, yeah,
there’s a pretty good chance that Domenic DeSalles will come to our
dorm rooms to kill us in our sleep. To finish the job he started in
the theater by blowing our brains out. I lean out the window and
throw up again.

“I’m taking care of a friend’s cat because
he’s on a job interview in Boston this weekend. He’d be cool with
us crashing at his apartment until we figure out which end is
up.”

***

I can’t sit down on the couch, even though
it’s old and ratty. My clothes are soaked in blood and I’ll stain
the couch and scare the shit out of the sleeping cat, for sure.
My blood? Ginny’s blood? “Ophelia’s” grandma’s blood? Who
knows?
But I don’t feel like I can stay on my feet any longer.
And next thing I know I’m sprawled out awkwardly, face down on the
floor, still seeing stars because I seem to have fainted. My big
blond hero is kneeling by my side, shaking me gently.

“Hey… hey, let me help you out. We… we can…
let’s go to the bathroom and get you cleaned up, and I can take a
look at your head wound. I don’t think it’s life-threatening,
because if it was… well, if it was you’d be dead by now.” Realizing
what he just said, he shrugs his bulky shoulders awkwardly. “Just
saying.”