Release Me (Stark Trilogy, #1)(76)
The choir from Oregon Episcopal, a group of teenagers dressed in red and black, gathers before the tree and sings, “Chestnuts roasting by an open fire, Jack Frost nipping at your nose,” their voices as clear and bright as the pillar of light that rises behind them. Children sway and smile and husbands kiss their wives on the cheek and they hug arms around each other.
All this time a white windowless van circles the block. A decal along the body reads DEDMEN PARTY AND CATERING SHOPPE, a cluster of colored balloons rising above the black capital letters. The reflection of the Christmas tree streams across the black windows. The fifth time it circles the square, its engine shouts and it gathers speed and lurches sideways, off the street, into the square. Its tires thud over the curb.
The first few people don’t even have time to scream, hammered by the grille, lost beneath the tires, their bodies cleaved. And then, all at once, as if everyone is connected by an invisible string, the crowd comes alive with a collective shout. Bodies shake, surge one way, then the other.
The choir is still singing when the van drops into the amphitheater. Their voices call out beautifully—soon lost against the harsh metallic bang when the undercarriage first slams the brick. The noise that follows is like the crash and crunch and shriek of the heaviest toolbox in the world hurled down a stone stairwell. Yellow sparks, like those of a failed Zippo, spit from the wheel wells.
The van is nearly to the tree when, in an orange flash, it is gone. A great boom sounds. Blackened strips of metal fling through the air, the shell of the van peeled away by its explosive core, the flames fingering their way outward, seizing and igniting so many bodies, flinging fistfuls of nails and screws and stainless-steel balls that blister brick and concrete and tear through flesh like buckshot through a road sign.
The brightness of the explosion—which for a few seconds chases away all the darkness and brings a hellish daylight to the square—has been replaced by a charred and smoking crater. Bodies lie in heaps, some of them moving, some not, their skin blackened and marred by many strange openings like diseased mouths.
A woman sits on a bench; the top of her skull is gone. The grayish nub of her brain peeks out. Threads of blood run down her face and dampen her jacket. She seems unaware of her injury, staring into the glow of her smart phone as if deciding whether or not she ought to call someone.
A man staggers by nearly naked, the clothes shredded off him, what remains hanging in blackened and bloody tatters like old bandages. His genitals are missing and blood streams down the insides of his legs. Another man walks by with no nose, another with no teeth, another with no lower jaw, his tongue dangling from a ragged toothy cavity.
“Help,” says a woman in a Rudolph sweater. “Can somebody help me?” But even if someone could, she wouldn’t be able to hear them. Her eardrums have ruptured and made her red sweater even redder along the shoulders. Rudolph’s red nose—powered by a battery pack—blinks a distress signal.
Santa’s body lies sprawled out in the shape of an X. His head is missing.
Chase sits in the center of the square. He cannot hear anything except the ringing in his ears. Only ringing is the wrong word. This is more like screaming, the screaming of a thousand cicadas. Around him he sees all these victims, bloodied and charred, some of them crawling and some staggering and some motionless. He sees them through the roiling smoke, sees them lit with flame, and his concussed brain believes he is at war again.
A man rushes toward him, a man in a smoking sport coat. He carries a pistol. Chase vaguely recognizes him. His mouth is moving but all Chase can hear is the sound of screaming insects. Another man joins him. And then another. More and more come out of the smoke, crowding around him, opening and closing their mouths, but the only noise is this terrible insect rasp that seems to emanate from them. He would love to run away, but his limbs feel loose in their sockets. He would love to close his eyes and pretend they didn’t exist, but they reach out and touch him all over, trying to move him, to wrestle him up, and as they press upon him, he lashes out and screams something garbled.
He sees, through the smoke, in the deepening black of the sky, a crescent moon. He feels a heat rising inside him. For the past twenty-four hours, at Buffalo’s orders, he has not taken Volpexx. He needed to be present for the ceremony. So long as he stayed calm, everything would be fine, Buffalo assured him. They talked about breathing—peach in, green out—good in, poisons out. They talked about what to do in case of hecklers. They talked about enjoying the moment.
Chase can feel his heartbeat crashing in his chest, can taste the blood in his mouth, can feel the wolf turning over inside him. He is breathing out of his mouth and he is rolling onto his knees and arching his back when he feels a sharp stabbing pain in his left buttock.
He flips over with a shriek and finds Buffalo leaning over him, drawing him into a suffocating hug. He says sh-sh-sh. In his hand is a tranquilizer the size of a fountain pen. He has stabbed it into Chase and already he feels its effects, a dopey calmness overtaking him, numbing any fear or desire.
Buffalo. Chase studies his old friend. His enormous forehead is bleeding and Chase wants to ask if he’s okay but can’t manage the words. One eye of his glasses is sooted over, but the other is clear and in it Chase can see his reflection. Though the air is cold, sweat has sprung from his skin and he takes on a paler color so that there seems to be something about him already embalmed.
Two of the news cameras are still rolling. They will close in on the governor, and then swing suddenly away. There are a series of pops, like the gunshots of a .22, that draw their attention skyward, finally settling into wobbly focus on the tree, which has caught fire. It begins with a yellow edging along some of the branches. Then, as the fire eats its way quickly through the needles, the swish and snap of flame grow louder, overtaking the screams and car alarms and sirens in the distance.