Down in the Sawgrass Boneyard

By Daniel Powell

On an otherwise ordinary spring day in sunny Jacksonville, Florida, an unhinged gunman shreds the fabric of a nation in yet another outburst of senseless gun violence.
His victims are primarily children—innocents walking home from school in those final fleeting days before the promise of spring break and time spent with family and friends.

When the families of the loved and the lost unite in a push for meaningful reform in the national gun laws, the National Rifle Association squelches their efforts with a series of backroom dealings and political saber-rattling.

Nothing changes; but, for so many, nothing will ever be the same again.

This is Darren Torrance’s sudden reality—a life without his family in a world that no longer makes sense.

But there is something he can do. A change that he can make in the names of his son and his wife.

Every few years, a celebration of opulence and excess known simply as the Gathering takes place in the heart of the Florida Everglades. Similar to the infamous Bohemian Grove meetings in California, the Gathering is a week-long celebration of privilege and wealth as attendees shape political policy and forge business deals.
Jackson Ashcroft—the controversial and charismatic President of the NRA—is attending this year and celebrating yet another successful anti-regulatory campaign season.

If Torrance can utterly transform himself and blend into his surroundings in the River of Grass, he just might be able to provide Ashcroft with the ultimate Everglades survival experience.

Down in the Sawgrass Boneyard is Darren’s story of transformation and redemption, as vengeance blooms among the swamp lilies in this gritty thriller about the power and persistence of a father’s love for his family.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Daniel Powell
• Release date: Sep 14, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005135508

Daniel Powell

Daniel Powell teaches a variety of courses at a small college in Northeast Florida. He is an avid outdoorsman and long-distance runner, and enjoys fishing the tidal creeks of Duval County from atop his kayak.He shares a small house near Florida's Intracoastal Waterway with his wife, Jeanne, and his daughter, Lyla. His stories have appeared in Redstone Science Fiction, Brain Harvest, Leading Edge, Something Wicked and Well Told Tales.Drop by The Byproduct, his web journal on speculative storytelling, at www.danielwpowell.blogspot.com.

Book preview

ONE

The goddamned migraine was back.

Johnny Ray Atkins had spent his afternoon sipping twelve-ounce frosty mugs at Rooster’s, methodically working his way through the money his mother had given him for cutting the grass. He chatted along with the other barflies, periodically massaging his temples in an attempt to quell the persistent throbbing behind his eyes.

The headaches were getting worse. It had been weeks since he’d made it through the day without one, and they haunted him like his daily ruminations on how little he had accomplished in his life. They haunted him like his mother’s constant reprimands—like those purple memories of the public scolding he’d endured when he’d been booted off the job with the paving company.

The beer probably didn’t help things in the long run, of course, but it dulled the icepick plinking away inside his skull just a bit, so his trips to Rooster’s had become a daily ritual.

He drank until the money vanished before somehow piloting his crumbling pickup back across town without incident. He pulled around to the back of the trailer and parked beneath a towering magnolia where he simply sat there in the afternoon heat for a long moment, gathering himself. His head hurt and his back ached, and he had to go inside because the simple truth was that he had nowhere else to go. The engine ticked and the air in the cab quickly went from tolerable to sweltering. Johnny checked his bloodshot eyes in the rearview and swallowed thickly before crossing the yard and attempting a stealthy entrance through the back door.

Is that you, Johnny? his mother immediately called from the parlor, her voice like the banshee wail of the masonry saw he’d once commanded. He hated the sound of that damned saw, but the squawks coming out of his mama were worse.

Yeah, he grunted, it’s just me.

"Then I’m gonna say it one last time and then be done with it, Johnny. You shouldn’t have acted like that last night! The entire street is picking sides, boy! I’m scared just to go out and fetch the mail!"

He had a vague memory of shoving Bobby Clanton down in their dusty driveway the previous evening. He’d swatted the kid’s sweat-stained ball cap off his head They’d been going back and forth about politics and the job market and the future of a country that was barely limping along.

Yeah, well…it ain’t nothing, mama. A boiling pot gets hot over time, and it just has to let off steam. S’all that was. He opened the cabinet above the range and took down a plastic jug of cheap bourbon. They bought the stuff in cases at the discount liquor store over on Beach Boulevard—splitting most of a bottle between themselves nearly every day. He poured three inches over ice, splashed some generic cola on top, and joined his mother in the parlor.

She sat in front of a daytime talk show. Johnny sipped his drink with disgust, digesting the spectacle on the screen. Some moron could barely contain himself as he worked through a stack of paternity results. A pair of squawking women clutched at an overweight man with neck tattoos and a shaved head, his cheap sweater torn and hanging from beefy shoulders run through with stretch marks.

Johnny crumpled onto the sofa with a sigh. This was their goddamned afternoon…

"Bobby Clanton is a good kid, Johnny, mama scolded him, noticing his sullen demeanor. He’s very nice and well-mannered. You had no cause to humiliate him like that."

Johnny took another sip before stirring his drink with his pinkie. That kid ain’t got no sense, he grunted. Might seem like he means well, but he doesn’t understand the real world, mama. I mean, look around here! Look at what’s happening outside your own damned window.

His speech was already getting loose, and it wouldn’t be long until he got to slurring. The bourbon could really jump on him if he’d put in a long day at Rooster’s.

"You know what, Johnny? I actually like that subject, she said, shifting her bulk in the recliner that had pretty much become her home. She studied her son, a rosy hue in her cheeks. What, exactly, is happening, Johnny? Far as I can tell, not one goddamn thing, son. You sit there all afternoon with your no-good buddies at Rooster’s, doing God only knows what, and then you come home here and treat the decent people in this neighborhood like garbage. Do you even remember what you did last night?"

Johnny scratched at his jaw, trying to put things into some kind of order. Wild Turkey was no joke. He had an hour—maybe two—before darkness fell on him again and he was operating solely on that high-octane, full-throttle Johnny Ray Atkins Time.

He’d been going at it like that for months. The contractors wouldn’t touch him due to his drinking, and he couldn’t really do much else but cut paver stones and slap them together in patterns. Finding work was a pickle, to be sure, but he could bide his time and keep his mama company while he waited for his ship to come in. Things were bound to get better soon—at least that’s what the folks in Washington kept saying.

What? he finally said, turning his red eyes on his mama. The pot was simmering. He could feel the fire sparking in his belly…feel his heartbeat behind his left eye again. What exactly did I do, mama?

"You used that word in front of the whole neighborhood, Johnny. In front of the Jones family, the Charles family, and even in front of Ben Walls. You—you unzipped your pants and tried to urinate on Bobby Clanton, Johnny. Who on God’s green earth does that? You tell me, Johnny Ray, what kind of decent person acts like that?"

He drank off half the whiskey. Damn. She was right, of course—it was all coming back to him. There’d been a crowd, and he’d let ‘em all have it, of course. The pissing part didn’t bother him, but his heart kicked up a notch when he thought about the rest of it.

Ben Walls could seriously whip his ass. Johnny suddenly felt damned fortunate that he hadn’t woken up with a busted jaw or a few missing teeth.

I don’t give a fuck about no niggers, he finally replied, turning his gaze away from his mother’s face. There was that word again. "Never have, never will. And what about you, mama? You want to talk about doing something? You just sit in here all day, just…just watching this tired-ass neighborhood slide straight down the drain.

Can’t you see it? It’s right there in front of you! This place is getting closer to the edge every day, and you want to know why? You ever watch those little fuckers on their way to school? There’s a fucking stream of them, mama, running right past your front door! Shit’s only getting worse.

She clucked her tongue in distaste, turning back to the television. You’re not my son, she said quietly. Her tone was hushed, but there was real conviction in it. "I don’t know who you are, but you’re not my son. You’re…you’re just some imposter, a phony filled with anger and hatred and I don’t even know you. Sometimes I wish you’d just leave and stay gone, Johnny."

What? he said. That last part got his attention. What’d you say, mama?

She leaned forward in her chair, pointing at him. "I had a son once—a sweet little boy named John. He was considerate of others, and he treated people with respect. He was a nice boy—a boy I could be proud of. He didn’t use nasty language like that. What kind of a person are you?"

Johnny massaged his temples with the pads of his fingers, his mouth twisted in anger. Good Lord—it was coming…

Don’t you remember, Johnny? she pleaded, her voice softening. "You used to work so hard to impress us with your schoolwork. You played with all of the neighborhood kids—regardless of their skin color. Your best friend, remember? Rodney Giles, from down the street? You two were inseparable. What happened, Johnny? What happened to that sweet little boy?"

He finished his drink—stood, stomped out, and took his time making another. That goddamned pot was absolutely roiling now…

When he rejoined her in the parlor, he went to the window to peer out at the street. The elementary school down the road would let out in thirty minutes or so. Idling cars lined the right sidewalk, a column of lazy parents waiting to collect their useless children.

He thought about his own time at Eagleview Elementary. It had been a fine school in those days. White teachers and a white principal. Sure, he’d been fine friends with Rodney back then, but that was just childhood stuff.

Everything had been so much easier in those days.

He sipped at his drink. You want to know what happened to that kid? he sneered at his mama, taking the measure of the place. They shared a dirty, cramped little parlor at the front of a decaying doublewide trailer. Cheap, single-paned windows. Thrift store furniture and a pair of shotguns propped against the wall in the foyer. There were a few dusty photographs on the wall and a fuzzy television broadcasting over-the-air pap almost every waking hour of the day. If a hurricane came through and did them a favor by tearing the place to pieces, he doubted he could legitimately find a $1,000 worth of damages in all of their meager possessions.

He sipped his drink, shook his head—his mouth a grim little line.

Tell me, she pleaded. "Tell me, John."

"Oh, he died a long time ago, he snarled. There was middle school, mama, when the tests got harder and there was no one at home to help him with the work. And then there was high school, when life picked fuckin’ sides. There was them, and there was me.

"They could take the tests, and I couldn’t. They could hit the damned baseball or catch the damned football. I couldn’t. They went out—to parties and dances and shit like that. I shot guns with Jimmy and Eric over at the quarry. You think I’m dead? How ‘bout them, mama? How about Jimmy and Eric?"

She looked away. Jimmy Anselmo was serving a life sentence in Raiford. Eric Levinson had been murdered in a drug deal. Johnny himself was a felon, serving almost three years on a conviction for armed robbery. Prison was where his worldview had finally snapped into focus, and where he’d picked up the tattooed swastikas decorating his acne-scarred shoulders.

Most of those other kids had parents, he continued on his screed. "Me? Well, I guess had you, and where were you back then, mama? You sure as shit weren’t here—just like Daddy. Bo left before he finished tenth grade, and then it was just me—stuck in this shithole trailer by myself."

Her mouth fell open, eyes shining with tears. The sounds of laughter, of children congregating at the front gates of the school in those boisterous and carefree moments before dismissal, floated down the street. It made for an unnerving (but not altogether uncommon) contrast—the untarnished, youthful exuberance from the schoolyard juxtaposed against the miserable human drama unfolding behind flimsy dollar-store curtains and a quarter-inch of cheap corrugated aluminum.

"I tried, she said, her trembling voice weak. At least I did that. I tried my best to keep things together when your father quit on us, John."

He turned to the window, taking it all in. Fucking niggers, he continued, ignoring her. "Just take a look out your front window, mama. They march up and down the sidewalk in spandex and costume jewelry, pushing babies in strollers with two more motherfuckers straggling along behind them like puppies. This is the problem. You know why I can’t find work?"

She steeled herself. Because you cussed the foreman at that construction company, Johnny. You cussed him right in front of his crew. What did you expect him to do?

I did, he said, nodding emphatically and crossing the room so aggressively that his mama flinched as he stood over her, "because that asshole told me that I had to start the whole damned project over from the beginning. The work was good, mama. It was fine. He did that on purpose. He did it just because he could."

That’s his job, son, she pleaded. He has a boss, too! You shouldn’t have done that, just like you shouldn’t have treated Bobby Clanton that way last night. People have pride, Johnny. You can’t talk to everybody else the way you talk to me.

Bobby Clanton, he sneered, returning to the window. The whiskey was working; his tongue was thick, his hands and fingers growing numb. His headache remained, but it was growing less pronounced.

Oh, it wouldn’t be long. He’d be on Atkins Time real soon.

Did you know that Bobby Clanton is shacked up with a black woman? They live together on the land that was once his daddy’s and his granddaddy’s, mama! What do you think his old granddaddy would say if he knew his grandson was carryin’ on like that?

His mother just shook her head in frustration. She pushed the cluttered tray away from her chair and began the arduous task of extricating herself from the recliner. John watched her efforts with disgust, naked disdain for the woman that had given him life roiling off him like the steam from a boiling kettle. She struggled to her feet, collected her cane, and started toward her bedroom. It can’t keep going on like this, she said. "You need to leave, Johnny. Tonight. Hell, go now—I don’t care. But you have to go. I don’t feel safe anymore here with you. You’re not the same man you used to be, and it’s time for you to go now."

Her steps were tiny, and she refused to meet his eyes as she shuffled across the room.

What? he said, a touch of panic in his voice. He tried to catch her eye, but she wouldn’t meet his. Why, mama? What’d I do?

She turned, her blue eyes flashing in anger. "You’re not him! You’re not my son, so don’t you dare call me ‘mama’ no more."

Johnny Ray Atkins swallowed. He opened his mouth, but words failed him. Here it was.

Here it finally was.

He watched his mother shuffling out of the room—out of his life and away from his toxic reach—and the darkness fell over him like a shroud.

Seething, he threw his drink against the wall. It exploded in a shower of ice and glass, sowing a crop of glittering diamonds in the drab shag carpet. Mama spun, mouth agape, her arm raised in protection against the sudden outburst. John! she shrieked, trembling. "What’s wrong with you?"

Her reaction was like a kick to the stomach. She’d never thanked him for his help around the house—for staying with her when Daddy and Bo had both acted on their common sense and left when the getting was good. She’d never shown an ounce of gratitude for all that he did to keep the neighborhood safe—for standing up to the stifling ways of those ungrateful waves of people that had infiltrated their neighborhood and their country and only sought to take…take…take.

She’d never loved him the way that a mother should love a son.

Never.

She reached for him, perhaps sensing a moment of clarity between them. You just hold that thought, mama, he said, striding across the room—to the Browning in the corner.

sep

Johnny Ray Atkins cracks the gun open, slides shells into the dual slots, and expertly levers the weapon closed with a flick of the wrist.

Mama watches her son, frozen in place. John, she whimpers, raising her arm for protection, even as he brings the gun level to his chest. "Please, Johnny. I don’t understa—."

But the Browning roars and the slug punches high into mama’s chest, shattering her ribs before tearing a pathway through the center of her heart and exiting in a ragged furrow under her left armpit.

She’s gone before she hits the floor, but he stands over her and empties the second barrel into her upper back. The blast is so close that her nearly three hundred pounds bounces up off the floor before pitching forward in a bloody, torn heap—her legs splayed out wide beneath her bulk. She looks like a giant baby (a great big bloody baby, he thinks, grinning) taking a nap on her stomach, her wide ass stuck straight up in the air.

He stands over his mama, unable to quite process what is happening because it’s pure, unadulterated, absolute Johnny Time now—more Johnny Time than it’s ever been and ever will be again—and he still has so many things to do.

So much left to finish.

He strides to the door and reloads the shotgun, dimly aware that it’s all been leading up to this moment. The problems in school. The inability to hold a job, to maintain a relationship. This very moment has been circling him for years, like one of those buzzards cruising for roadkill out on Phillips Highway.

His mama is right. He isn’t good at much, by God, but Johnny thinks he can probably do okay at this.

He makes himself another drink—knocks it down. One final round for the road…

He grabs the Browning and a box of shells and steps outside into the warmth of the afternoon. Children and parents meander up and down the road. It’s damned hot, but the Florida sunshine feels clean and refreshing. Spring break is right around the corner, and the kids are enjoying those glorious moments of freedom with their friends and family when they’re still as far away from the start of the next school day as they can possibly be.

Nobody sees him standing there on the faded deck. Nobody notices the blood-splashed man with the shotgun resting on his shoulder.

He smirks at his invisibility, walks to the fence, and unloads the first barrel at point-blank range into the side of a young mother’s head. It evaporates in a mist of blood and bone and she falls like a pinecone in a windstorm. Her son peers up at Johnny against the sunlight, his mouth agape. There’s pure confusion in his eyes.

Johnny unloads the second barrel.

There’s shrieking and wailing now, in addition to an absolute tidal wave of humanity as children and parents tear off in either direction. Johnny laughs.

They sure see him now.

He reloads, opens the gate, and steps out into the street.

A man, oblivious to the chaos while he pecks at his smartphone, sits quietly in an idling Nissan sedan. Johnny strides over to his window and taps twice before shooting the surprised man in the face. He draws down on a little girl—maybe a first or second grader—that accidentally went the wrong way in all of the chaos. She’s running straight toward him, her too-big backpack bouncing comically off her tiny backside, and he cuts her in half before reloading.

He looks up and sees, like some mythical mountain on the horizon, the dusty red bricks of the school. Eagleview Elementary. Back where it all really started—the hardship, the pain, the pathway that had led him to this, a forty-eight-year-old felon with no family, no prospects, no friends, and no future. He’d heard his whole life that education was the pathway to prosperity.

But instead, Eagleview had produced a slump-shouldered racist with a potbelly, swastika tattoos, and a serious drinking problem…a man who spent his days telling lies to liars at a biker bar out on Highway 1.

Johnny starts toward the school, noticing the crush of children (like ants, he ponders in some dim area of his bourbon-addled brain; they’re like a bunch of fucking ants, clamoring for shelter in a hail storm…) pushing back through the gates. He lets the Browning belch again…again…again. There are children all over the ground now. A female crossing guard kneels over a small, gasping boy wearing a Spider-Man backpack splashed with gore.

He puts the barrel to her head and executes her before she even registers his presence. A splotch of the woman’s brain matter sticks in the soft crescent of the dying boy’s orbital bone; for reasons beyond his understanding, Johnny finds this humorous.

Again, he laughs.

The gates are wide open, children scrambling all over the schoolyard, and he steps just inside and shoots—reloads; shoots—reloads.

He’s in the process of reloading for the umpteenth time when a familiar voice calls his name.

Mr. Atkins! Johnny! Over here!

He turns, the smoking Browning levered casually over his left forearm, a fresh shell in his right hand, to find Ben Walls drawing down on him with a matte-finish pistol.

Be—, he starts, but before the single syllable can enter the world, the bullet enters his right eye and cuts directly through his miserable, muddled brain.

The heat is blistering and Jacksonville is on fire with people screaming, crying, and bleeding in the street. The air reeks of death and smoke—the sun a torch threatening incineration to the absurd creatures scampering about the stained asphalt.

It’s Wednesday afternoon in America.

TWO

His mind had gone wandering again, but everything was under control. He’d delivered the same pitch at least a dozen times in the last few months, and he could probably hit the high notes and regurgitate the catch phrases in his sleep if he had to.

He stood before executives from a pair of large national drug stores, in addition to his own supervisor and the CFO of Arvex Pharmaceuticals, calmly extolling the virtues of Empherol, their new wonder drug for treating dementia. He was a professional, of course, and he engaged his audience with eye contact and spoke with a cool confidence that served to underline the notion that Arvex was the only company with which to do business when it came to memory enhancers.

He spoke, his voice rising and falling with the nuances of the sales pitch, but his mind was back home—replaying the morning. It had been one of those rare days when he’d risen early with Cara, as she had to get to her office downtown before sunrise. He’d surprised her in the shower, and they’d begun their day with a shared intimacy that had filled him with energy and promise.

After she’d left, lingering just a bit at the front door for a fantastic goodbye kiss, he’d rousted Tobin and made the boy a tall stack of fluffy pancakes. They watched Today together and cleaned up before he had driven his son to Eagleview Elementary.

How do airplanes fly? the boy asked as they passed Craig Air Field. A twin-engine Cessna was just separating from the runway as they made a right onto Lone Star Road.

Well, it’s not magic, Darren Torrance replied, patiently discussing the concept of lift and the design of the wings.

Why do you ask, Tobin?

I think it would be fun to be a pilot. I like seeing the world from way up high.

Darren smiled at his son in the rearview. I’d fly with you, T. We could go see the Orioles play at Camden Yards once a week!

Tobin had grinned at the idea and then they were in the drop-off line, inching toward the school’s entrance. Mr. Courson, Eagleview’s vice-principal, opened the crew-cab door with a warm smile. Tobester! he called, taking the boy’s hand and helping him slide down off the back seat of the Tacoma. You ready for another great day at school?

Tobin Torrance nodded eagerly and waved at his dad. Bye, Dad. See you tonight!

Okay, Toby. Shine today, son!

And then the boy was pulled into the current of children. Darren rolled the back window down. Love you! he shouted.

He could just catch a glimpse of his son looking back for an instant, and then he was inside the school and off to his classroom.

Darren sometimes thought it was odd how well he could compartmentalize things, but it was a talent he’d possessed since he was Tobin’s age. He could listen to the teacher and retain his lessons while simultaneously drawing dinosaurs and working on his homework, ever content to keep all of those plates spinning at once.

And what about the side effects, Mr. Torrance? an executive from CVS said.

Of course, Mr. Dunn. Empherol has proven to be our least intrusive product yet in the fight against dementia and age-related memory loss. In fact…, he said, sliding effortlessly down this new line of discussion.

It had been a fine presentation and he was confident his efforts would yield a purchase order. He was just approaching the coup de grâce—the unbeatable price-point concessions that Arvex was willing to offer on bulk orders—when his assistant slipped into the conference room. She seemed on the verge of tears.

"I am so sorry to interrupt, Mr. Torrance, but it’s your wife. It’s an emergency," Allison said. She made tight little fists with her hands—clenching and unclenching with anxiety.

I’m sure it can wa—, he started, but she cut him off.

"It can’t, sir. She insisted. You have to take this call now."

He smiled sheepishly at his boss—at the executives from the drug stores. Okay. I’m…I’m really sorry, everyone. Please, just take a moment to use the restroom or grab some refreshments and I’ll be back shortly to discuss our bulk pricing options on Empherol. Thank you.

He buttoned his coat and followed Amber back to his office. "Line one. I’m sorry to interrupt, Darren, but it’s really important. She’s very upset."

He closed the door and picked up the phone. Honey? What’s goi—, he started, but her frantic sobbing came pouring through the phone.

Honey! he said, Cara—please! Take a deep breath and tell me what’s going on!

It’s Tobin, she wailed. Oh my God, Darren, he’s been shot! Toby’s at the hospital! There’s been a shooting at the school. I’m on my way to Memorial. They have him in the emergency room. Please, Darren—hurry! Our son’s been shot!

Instant, searing pain erupted in his chest. He swallowed the knot in his throat. Shot? Tobin? Wait, honey, I don’t…

Hurry! she sobbed. "Just hurry, Darren!"

Okay. Okay, honey—I’m leaving now. I’ll be right there. I’m leaving now.

He hung up, grabbed his phone, and sprinted away from Arvex without another word.

Memorial was only about twenty minutes away, and he darted in and out of traffic as he screamed west. He rifled a hand through his hair, his mouth bone dry. He drank off the final two ounces of warm water from the bottle he’d left in his truck on the morning commute. It was stale, and he suddenly felt himself fighting tears.

Shot? What in the hell was this?

He checked the time—3:53 —before yanking on the wheel to narrowly avoid an SUV’s bumper.

Good Lord, it had to be a mistake. Someone’s wires had gotten crossed—that was the only logical explanation. A broken leg on the playground? Maybe, but a shooting…?

He screeched into the first open spot near the entrance to the ER and sprinted for the front desk. An older woman sat behind the desk, worrying her hands. She had sorrow in her eyes, and she simply pointed toward a bank of rooms at the end of the hallway.

Darren sprinted down the corridor and through the heavy swinging doors to find a weeping woman standing on the periphery of a series of blood-spattered doctors. Her fingers formed a steeple over her mouth and nose. She was struggling to breathe—on the edge of hyperventilation.

Cara? he called, but she didn’t hear him. He went to her, but she wasn’t his wife anymore. She was dressed identically to the woman that he’d made love to that morning. She had the same hair color—was the same height.

But that was where any similarity ended. This woman wore an expression of pure anguish. This woman trembled with fear, standing on the periphery with the knuckle of her right index finger now in her mouth, tears streaming down rose-blossom cheeks.

He pulled her close and turned his attention to the table.

Tobin (his boy—his only son) was there—open—on the table. His little heart (his heart? Toby’s heart?) fluttered lethargically, a series of tubes snaking in and out of the ruin of his chest cavity; a larger tube had been pushed down his throat. Oh! he said, blinking hot tears onto his cheeks. He covered his mouth with a shaking hand. "Oh, dear God…"

Cara finally noticed him. She buried her face in his shoulder, sobbing—clinging to him to keep from crumbling to the floor.

He braced her, watching in horror as they operated on his son. A moment later, a pair of nurses entered the ER and crossed the room.

I am so sorry, but you have to leave, the younger of them said. Her voice was gentle, her eyes kind above the thin cotton mask; Darren Torrance saw the nurses standing before them and thought to himself, This can’t be happening. None of this can actually be happening.

It just couldn’t.

The doctors need space to operate. Please, Mr. and Mrs. Torrance—come with us. We can’t stay here. We have a private place for you to wait while the doctors care for your son.

Wait? Cara said, mouth agape. "Tobin needs us here. Can’t we stay with him? Darren, talk to them! Can’t we stay with our son?"

The nurse—her name was Tiffany—took her hands. They are trying to stabilize him, she said, her tone even and calm. It’s all we can hope for right now. Please, Mrs. Torrance. The doctors need room to help your son get better. We have to clear the area.

Okay, Darren croaked, wiping the tears from his eyes. We can go someplace close, right? Please?

Yes, Mr. Torrance, Tiffany said, placing a hand gently on his back. Right next door.

Shuffling together in the throes of a living nightmare, they followed the woman to the private room.

THREE

Officer Christopher Stone had been patrolling traffic on Merrill Road for the better part of an hour when the call hit his radio.

Come in, Officer 7589—we have a reported 18-P with an active shooter. Suspect on foot in the vicinity of Eagleview Elementary. Multiple shots fired. I repeat: 18-P with an active shooter in the vicinity of Eagleview Elementary School.

Stone tossed the radar detector onto the passenger seat and flipped his flashers on. He paused to allow a string of cars to pass before surging out onto Merrill Road. Eagleview was just over a mile away. He knew it well and had visited the school often in supporting community-policing efforts in recent years.

He screamed down St. Johns Bluff Road, vehicles darting to either side of the busy road as he weaved through afternoon traffic, before taking a skidding right turn onto Lone Star. The first thing he noticed as he approached the school were the clusters of people forming here and there in the street. The largest group huddled in the center of the asphalt—in the middle of the crosswalk where scores of children crossed the road every day on their way to their homes and the apartment communities in Brookwood Forest.

Stone confirmed his presence at the scene with dispatch before stepping out of the vehicle and drawing his service pistol in a single fluid motion. He scanned the area even as he sprinted toward the throng of onlookers standing over a pair of lifeless figures in the crosswalk.

A young man with slacks, a bow tie, and bright blue Converse high tops knelt over a boy. The man was covered in bright red blood, and he held a gym towel against the boy’s chest, murmuring a stream of comforting affirmations in a hushed torrent. It’s going to be okay, Toby. I’m with you, son—just breathe, Toby. There you go—just breathe, son…

The boy stared up at the sky, gasping for oxygen like a guppy on a countertop.

Where is the shooter? Stone said, still processing things even as he knelt at the boy’s side. He squeezed the child’s hand. A deceased woman lie face down on the asphalt beside him, the back of her head like a shattered gourd.

An older woman with thick glasses pointed to another crumpled body about twenty yards away, just inside the perimeter of the school’s parking lot. Stone found a solitary man face down on the asphalt. A wide pool of blood had spread beneath him; he wore dirty cargo pants and a filthy white tee shirt. A muscular young man in jean shorts and a polo shirt stood above him, his empty hands raised to his shoulders.

I shot him, sir, he said. I have a handgun tucked inside the waistband of my pants and a legal permit to carry. I had to put him down, sir. He was shooting at the kids and heading for the school.

Just keep pressure on the wound, Stone urged the man in the bowtie. Paramedics should be here any minute.

Gun at his side, he went over to the crumpled figure in the parking lot. The butt of a shotgun peeked out from beneath his gut, a few unspent shells fanned out around him. I’ll need that weapon for now, Stone said, extending his left hand. Ben Walls handed the pistol over without a word, nodding at the officer in agreement. Stone checked the safety and slipped it into a side pocket of his pants just as another cruiser arrived on the scene from the west end of Lone Star Road. Two more cruisers were converging on the northern end of Sutton Boulevard, where at least a half dozen other clusters dotted the roadway.

Was there anybody else? Stone asked, peering up toward the entrance to the school. The foyer was choked with staff and children, most of them wailing and clinging to each other.

Walls shook his head, his mouth a thin, bitter line. Stone turned his gaze down Sutton Boulevard, toward the hundreds of residential homes in Brookwood Forest.

Officer James Piñeiro sprinted over from the cruiser he’d parked sideways to close off traffic from the western end of Lone Star. Jesus, he said, gun drawn. This the shooter?

Stone nodded. Why don’t you go inside, Jimmy. Take a pass through the school. When you’re finished, move those teachers and children back into the gym or the cafeteria for the time being. They don’t need to see this.

Piñeiro nodded, sprinting toward the school’s entrance. He spoke briefly with an officious woman that Stone assumed was the principal before disappearing through the front doors. The sharply dressed woman began herding the survivors through the parking lot and back toward the doors leading into the gymnasium.

Good Lord, Stone whispered, digesting the gravity of a scene in which so many other tiny bodies lie prone along Sutton Boulevard. Stay here, Mr.—

Ben Walls, Ben replied, offering his hand. Stone shook it, nodding his thanks.

Stay put, Ben. We’ll need a statement. But you did a good thing here today. I’m glad you put him down. I’m heading down Sutton Boulevard, but I’ll radio dispatch so they know the situation. Stay here with the shooter, for now.

Walls nodded and Stone jogged down the street, calling it in on the run.

sep

He stops at the first cluster, wading into a collection of weeping adults. A little boy with a chest wound the size of a softball lies in the center of the street. His eyes are (blessedly, thank God for small miracles) shut, his Ironman backpack a pillow beneath his tiny head.

It’s clear that he’s gone, and Stone swallows his anger and disgust. He swallows it down—consuming the revulsion and burying it inside—just as he was taught in his training.

Eat the pain. Eat the pain and keep on moving.

The next victim is a little girl—maybe six or seven years old. She’s probably a first grader. She, too, is beyond help. But her eyes are open, and Stone steps aside as an older sibling stumbles forward, kneels, and pulls her little sister into her lap, silently sobbing. The plastic beads in the little girl’s braids make a clacking sound as her sister clutches her torn body to her chest.

He chokes it down, stores it—moves on…

Stone makes his way up Sutton Boulevard. A dead man without a face slumps against the steering wheel of a late-model Nissan. A young mother and her tiny son lie close together, almost as naturally as if they were at home watching cartoons on the couch.

He slowly makes his way down Sutton Boulevard, describing the carnage into his radio while ambulances and police cruisers and news vans and helicopters add to the cacophony of terror and misery that now stains what he’d always thought of as a good, safe, hard-working neighborhood.

Good lord, but it’s so damned hot out. The world is burning, and Stone swallows the heat and stores it down inside along with the anger and the grief. He watches his colleagues stretching yellow tape between a pair of cruisers—a few desperate reporters already attempting to push toward the killing grounds that had once been a quiet suburban street where kids played