Joe (26 page)

My breathing was growing more and more
shallow, but I was paying attention. Really, I was hanging on every word.

“It’s okay to be scared,” Mr. Landry
said. “Hell, I’m scared for you, but that’s okay. You
need
to be scared.
Especially now. The more I can scare you now, the more you can prepare yourself
to expect it tomorrow, and not let it stop you from carrying out your mission.
You can do this, soldier, and do you know why?”

I shook my head. I had no idea.

“Because you have an advantage. This
asshole you’re facing expects to be up against a herd of sheep tomorrow. He
thinks he’ll be the only one armed, the only
wolf
in the area. But
you’ll be armed too, and you have the advantage of knowing all of this. You’ll
be waiting for him, watching for him. He won’t be looking for another wolf;
he’ll be too busy drooling over the sheep. Get it?”

I nodded. I hadn’t really thought about
any of this, and now it seemed so obvious. It was almost enough to make me
think I could actually succeed tomorrow.

“Okay,” Mr. Landry continued, “Repeat
Rule Number One.”

I did. And we continued on like this for
some time, me gobbling up all his wisdom and committing it to memory. By the
end of our talk, I felt more confident—if not more terrified—about my “mission”
tomorrow. I did have a major advantage over Shadowman, but even Mr. Landry
agreed I would need to get as close to the gunman as safely possible if I
expected to land the shot. He emphasized the word
safely
a lot.

“You ain’t no good to nobody dead,” he
told me.

Before I knew it, the hour had grown
late, and dark was setting in behind Mr. Landry’s kitchen window. I felt as
though I was as prepared for tomorrow as I would ever be, but I still had so
many questions. Mostly about his gift and this so called
control
he had
over it. 

Mr. Landry was growing weary, though,
and I knew he probably wanted to get to bed, so I thanked him for everything
and stood to leave.

“I know you got more questions,” he
said. “I promise that I’ll answer them best I can when you get home from school
tomorrow.” He stopped, and we stared at each other for a moment. We both knew
that a huge
if
belonged somewhere in that statement and it seemed to
hang in the air between us.

“You’re gonna make it through tomorrow,
soldier,” he said. “And that’s an order.”

I nodded, unshed tears stinging my eyes.
I didn’t want to cry in front of him. He had surely faced worse things in his
day, and to cry would probably seem weak. I thanked him again and turned to go.

“Joe?” he asked.

My hand froze over the doorknob, and I
turned back to face him.

“You don’t have to do this, you know.”

I can’t
not
do this, sir.

Even in my head the words sounded
anguished.

“I knew you’d say that,” he said, and
gave me a crooked smile. “And for whatever it’s worth, you’re one of the
bravest people I’ve ever met, and I’ve met a lot of brave men in my day. Half
of them wouldn’t have the balls or heart to do what you’re doing. Anyway, you
should know that. And if things do go wrong tomorrow, I want you to know I’ll
see to it that they bury you with my Purple Heart on your chest.”

I just nodded and wiped away the few
tears that had managed to escape my eyes.

“But you know what I think?”

I shook my head.

“I think you’re going to kick ass and take
names tomorrow. You’re a smart girl, and that’s the best weapon anyone can
have. I think you were meant for bigger things. I don’t got much belief in God,
but if He’s got an army, I’d think that you’re one of His soldiers.”

“Th-thank you, sir.”

“You go on now, get your rest. You’ve
got an early day tomorrow. And, Joe? Don’t forget Rule Number One.”

I left then, but I could swear I saw a
few tears escape Mr. Landry’s eyes as he sat at his kitchen table and watched
me go.

I did manage to get some sleep, though
it was broken and filled with dreams about Shadowman and bodies and blood and
bullets and a raven. Surprisingly, it was the raven that bothered me the most.

And while I slept, the hours on the
clock slid onward and into a new day.

Monday was finally here.

Chapter
Forty-Five

The
Decider

He
sat on his balcony and watched the sunrise. It was six-seventeen, Monday
morning. The date was April twentieth, 2012. As the young man named Danny
watched the sky go from deep blue to baby blue to orange, heard the birds awake
from their slumbers to call out their greeting to a new day, he became a new
thing, a new person, a new and higher
Being.
From this day forward he
could go by many names, as do most higher forms. There were plenty that fit:
Psychopath, Madman, Gunman…
Shadowman
. But the one he had chosen was The
Decider. And so it was.

In those first glowing hours of the day,
as he sat silent and still above the land, it seemed to him his entire
existence had been leading up to this point—every breath and heartbeat the
countdown to what now waited over the horizon. It was a settling, cozy feeling.
It soothed the soul.

But he was ready. Noontime could not
come soon enough. It taunted him much in the way the smells of baked bread taunt
a starving belly.

The time is near.

The thought settled him. He showered
quickly and efficiently and stood in front of the fogged mirror over his sink.
He wiped away the condensation with his towel, and stared at his own reflection
for ten minutes without moving an inch. Then he moved into his bedroom and
removed his chosen outfit from the closet, laying it neatly over his bed. It
was perfect, and he stared at the clothes for a few minutes as well before
slipping them on. Then he set himself to his final preparation tasks, like a
drone that has had a switch flipped. Just like that.

He removed items from his closet one by
one, placing them each on the bed in a specific spot. He aligned his ammunition
in a row at the top of the bed: four spare magazines for the handguns, each
with fifteen cartridges. Beside these were two banana clips for his Big Boy,
the one he would bring out at the finale, the AK-47. The two were taped
together end to end, so he could simply flip the discharged clip and swap it
for the new one attached to its end. If the pigs wanted to show up early, he
would have sixty rapid-fire rounds to welcome them to the party.

Further down the bed lay the weapons
themselves. A Sig Sauer 9mm, a .45 Beretta, and the AK. The Decider had a
special relationship with the Sig. It was his Go-To Bitch, but the AK had a
mouth on her that looked as though it could
really
spit and spray. It
was the only one of the three he had never fired. It wasn’t the type of gun you
normally brought to the range.

At the bottom of the bed lay a pair of
black leather gloves, a walkie-talkie, and his empty black backpack. At
seven-ten The Decider filled the backpack and grabbed the cardboard box with
the name
Gail Heart
written in black block letters across the top.
Checking the contents for the hundredth time, he headed out the door.

He cruised down Highway 71 toward the
University of Midwest Missouri State
(UMMS, for short. Stupid fucking
acronym)
and drummed his thumbs on the steering wheel to the tune of an old
Jimmy Buffet song.

At his first stop he left the cardboard
box beside the dumpster—not in plain sight, but where Mr. Janitor was sure to
stumble across it later in the day—at the Channel Five News station, and headed
to his final destination.

He arrived at seven-thirty-five a.m.

Chapter
Forty-Six

Joe

I
arose early, showered, dressed, and forced some dry toast down my throat. For
several minutes, I thought the toast was going to come right back up. It
didn’t. Small wonder. Hopefully, the day would yield more of them.

I felt numb and robotic as I went
through my morning routine, but that was fine. It was better than what I had
been feeling all night. It was almost as though someone had thrown a switch in
my brain, putting me on auto-pilot. That was okay, too. For now.

I chose an army-green jacket to go over
my gray t-shirt and jeans, even though the forecast said temperatures would
reach the lower eighties by noon. The jacket had big, deep pockets, so I would
just have to deal with the heat. Removing the gun Mr. Landry had given me from
its blue plastic case, I made sure the safety was on the way he had shown me.
The old man had emphasized the safety’s importance over and over last night
during our strange little talk. He had made me practice without looking at it
for nearly thirty minutes, flicking it on and off with my pointer finger, like
a drill for a soldier. Its weight was oddly comforting and familiar in my hand
this morning. I slipped it into the deep right pocket of my jacket.

After I explained to him about the feeling
I’d surely get when my premonition was actually taking place, about how I would
just
know
when the time had come, Mr. Landry had said, “Then that’s when
you turn off that safety. Right then. Don’t even think twice. You get that
feeling in your gut, and you take it as an order to turn off that damned
safety. We clear, soldier?”

Yes, sir. Hoo-rah.

Next, I emptied my backpack of books and
left only loose papers and a few pencils inside. I wanted to blend in, so I
would wear it on my back all day, but it needed to be as weightless as possible
so it wouldn’t slow me down.

As I stepped out of my apartment
building, my backpack slung over one shoulder and my curiously steady hands
shoved in the deep pockets of my jacket, I found Mr. Landry waiting for me. I
nodded my greeting. There was no need for words. We stared at each other for a
small moment that seemed to last ages, and I knew if I didn’t get going soon, I
was going to lose my nerve. I didn’t have to be a telepath to read the thoughts
behind his glistening gray eyes. It was the same look an army commander gives
his men just before he says, “It’s been an honor serving with you.”

I managed a smile that probably more
closely resembled a grimace, and thought,
You too, sir. You too.

In response, the old man placed a rigid
hand to his brow and saluted me. I turned away before useless tears decided to
prick my eyes. It was time to go.

Five minutes later I was cruising down
Highway 71 toward UMMS, where destiny was waiting for me. Somehow, that was
okay, too. Maybe it’s
always
waiting. For all of us. And as a rule, I
don’t—

(hesitate)

—make a habit of showing up late. Like a
good little soldier, I would show up early. By seven forty-five a.m., I was
heading across the Quad at UMMS to sit under the oak tree Michael and I sat
under the previous day. There, I waited.

Hoo-rah.

Chapter
Forty-Seven

Mina

At
eight o’ clock, Mina dropped Dominic off at preschool and was heading down
Highway 71 with Davis toward UMMS. She had a nine o’ clock class, and she liked
to get to school a little bit early. She had kissed Dominic goodbye and told
him she would be there to pick him up after school, as she did every school
morning.

Her thoughts were good ones. She
couldn’t keep her mind off Russell. Last night had been amazing, and she
thought if she could hold on to this man, everything would all right. All of a
sudden, in the space of one perfect Sunday, everything in her world had been
all right.

Through her windshield, the sun was
shining as sweetly as it had been yesterday, and even Davis seemed to be in a
good mood.

Mina had snuck Russell out this morning
before the boys had gotten up, and he had kissed her long and hard, promising
to meet her at the Quad for lunch. That’s what was on her mind as she unknowingly
drove toward her destiny, with her son sitting shotgun.

Along with fifteen thousand other UMMS
attendees.

Chapter
Forty-Eight

John

At
nine o’ clock a.m., John was just walking into his Biology class, and
practically floating on air. All that stood between him and his Jodie was a
couple classes and a handful of hours. He had pulled his long hair back into a
ponytail and ironed his chosen outfit carefully this morning. He had been
unable to sleep, and he wished he could just fast-forward the time until
tonight.

But the day was going to move at its own
pace. Time would walk on at its leisure no matter how many wishes John made.

His lab partner—a pretty girl named
Claire that John secretly had a crush on since they had met at the beginning of
the semester—sat across from him. She offered him a small smile in greeting. He
returned it with a large grin. John noticed that Claire looked different today
somehow, and though this girl paled in comparison to his Jodie, that didn’t
stop him from spending half of the class period trying to put a finger on the
subtle difference in his lab partner. Her hair was the same. Her posture was
the same attentive, stiff-backed one she always wore. Her makeup was applied as
always. Still…

After a while, he gave up, and turned
his thoughts back to Jodie. There was no way he could have known the difference
about Claire on this particular Monday morning was that she was carrying a
bottle full of pills in her backpack she planned to take after school today.

Really, none of them could have known
anything
that was about to happen today. Which was good. Better to think about things
like Jodie.