One Breath Away Read online

  Chapter 42:

  Mrs. Oliver

  All eyes were on the closet door where the man had discarded Lucy and shoved a chair beneath the doorknob. It had been almost two hours since the man had entered the classroom and Mrs. Oliver knew what was going to happen next. You didn’t work with children for over forty years and not get to know their patterns, their needs. Poor Leah. Mrs. Oliver could tell by the way she was crossing her legs that things were getting pretty desperate.

  “Excuse me,” she said loudly. The man looked up from his cell phone in irritation. “The children are going to need to use the facilities.”

  “They’ll just have to hold it,” he responded, his attention returning to his handheld.

  A small whimper escaped the lips of Leah and she looked urgently at Mrs. Oliver. “No, they can’t hold it. They’ve been holding it since you’ve arrived. Plus, they’re nervous. Everyone has to go to the bathroom when they’re nervous.” The man looked around the room. “The bathrooms are just outside the door, across the hallway,” she explained. “It will only take a few minutes. We’ve got it down to a science, don’t we, boys and girls?” The students nodded fervently.

  “Mrs. Oliver,” Leah said miserably. “Please,” she begged.

  “Come on now,” Mrs. Oliver chided. “What can it possibly hurt?”

  The man thought for a moment and looked at Leah, who was trying to squeeze back tears and, by the way she was holding herself, other bodily fluids, as well. “You have five minutes,” he told Mrs. Oliver. “Get them to the bathroom and back in five minutes. One second longer and I’ll start shooting.”

  Mrs. Oliver nodded and stood quickly, causing a dagger of pain to shoot up her leg and into her lower back. “Line up, children.” Hesitantly, the students looked to one another, rose from their seats and lined up at the door. “Boys on the left, girls on the right,” she ordered. Once everyone was in line, Mrs. Oliver looked at her watch. “We only have five minutes now. No dillydallying. Don’t even worry about washing your hands.” Seeing the look of disgust on Ryan Latham’s face, she assured him that they had gallons of antibacterial gel in the classroom for their use. “Ready, now? Four boys and girls at a time. Go!” The first eight children dashed from the classroom to the restrooms across the hallway. The man had moved to a far corner of the classroom where he could still clearly keep an eye on what Mrs. Oliver and the students were doing but was obviously more concerned about what he was looking at on his phone. Another spasm of fear went through Mrs. Oliver’s belly. There was much more to this than she initially had thought. Maybe it didn’t have anything to do with the school, this classroom, these students. Maybe it had nothing to do with her. If it was one man fixated on one particular student or even on her, she could see the entire episode ending peacefully. But this man seemed almost indifferent to all of them. As if this was a randomly chosen room that he decided to ensconce himself within until the real action began. For some reason this thought made her much more worried. This man didn’t care about them, they were expendable. He was lying in wait. For what she didn’t know. Mrs. Oliver glanced at her desk, where her cell phone was hidden away. If only she could get to her phone.

  Chapter 43:

  Augie

  Each step toward P.J.’s classroom seems like a bigger and bigger mistake, but I can’t stop myself. I’m such a crappy sister. The other night when Grandpa had fallen asleep on the couch with P.J. sitting next to him, I had switched the channel to a TV documentary about serial killers. The reporter was talking about how researchers have done all these scans on the brains of murderers and found that many had head injuries as children. I looked over at P.J., and I could tell exactly what he was thinking. When I was five and P.J. was just a few weeks old I decided to run away from home. My mom and dad were fighting, again, shouting and swearing and saying mean things to each other about P.J. I couldn’t stand it anymore. I packed my book bag with clothes, diapers and a bottle for P.J. and climbed over the railing and into his crib. He looked up at me with his dark eyes that were never going to turn blue like my dad’s, and waited to see what I was going to do next. He was surprisingly heavy for such a little baby and I really thought I could lean over the bars of his crib and lower him gently to the ground. I didn’t mean to drop him, but I did, right on his bald head. It took him several seconds to catch his breath before he could cry, but when he did, wow. I leaped out of that crib, grabbed my book bag, flew out the door and ran and ran until I found myself ten blocks from home at Bang!—the hair salon where my mom worked. I sat out front, boiling in the sun until my dad drove up in his truck. “Get in, Augie,” he said.

  “No,” I said stubbornly, even though I was sunburned and dying of thirst.

  “Augie,” he said angrily, opening the truck door and climbing out. I wondered if I ever would see him smile again. “Get in the damn car.”

  “No,” I repeated, hooking my ankles around the leg of the bench and clutching onto the metal arm. He’d have to throw the entire bench, me included, into the back of the truck to get me to go back home. I squinched up my eyes as he came toward me and felt his strong hands reach up under my armpits trying to lift me. “Gahhhhh,” I hollered, knowing from experience that would stop him in his tracks. My dad didn’t like people looking at him like he was a child abuser. He let go and I peeked open one eye, hoping that he would have given up and left. No such luck. Instead, my dad was on his knees in front of me, one hand over his eyes.

  “P.J. is at the hospital with your mom,” he said softly, his voice strangely thick and choked. I didn’t like the way it sounded and I opened both my eyes. “You dropped him on his head, Augie. What were you thinking? You know you aren’t supposed to pick him up without your mother or me there.” That was a laugh, my five-year-old self thought. I’d never even seen my dad pick P.J. up, just stare down at him like he was something out of one of my Ripley’s Believe It or Not books. “Come on now, I’m serious, Augie. You could have really hurt him. You’re lucky he didn’t die.”

  My heart swelled with worry. That wasn’t what I wanted at all. I had just wanted to get P.J. and me away from the yelling and name calling. “Stop fighting,” I said. “Stop fighting and I’ll come home.”

  My dad made a little huffing sound through his noise, almost a laugh, but not quite. I wasn’t trying to be funny. “Okay, Augie,” he said in a quiet, sad voice. “We’re done fighting. I promise.” I unsnaked my feet from the bench legs and allowed myself to be lifted and carried to the truck. P.J. had to spend the night in the hospital for observation and after X-rays and CAT scans he was allowed to come home. A slight concussion, the doctors said.

  My dad kept his promise. Twenty minutes after my mother arrived home from the hospital with P.J., he packed up and left. They never fought anymore. Not really, not in front of us, anyway.

  Through the years it got to the point where my mom and even my dad laughed about how I tried to kidnap P.J. and how I accidentally dumped him on his head. Even P.J. would smile and shake his head as if he could remember the whole thing. To me I just remember single-handedly nearly killing my brother and ending my parents’ marriage.

  “What’s a frontal lobe?” P.J. asked. He was on the couch leaning against Grandpa’s shoulder, whispering so he didn’t wake him up. Traitor, I thought.

  “It’s what I dropped you on,” I said seriously. “Right on the serial killer soft spot.”

  “Shut up,” P.J. said, but I could hear the worry in his voice.

  “I’m just saying…” I shrugged my shoulders and stood. “Now just excuse me while I go find a hammer to hide under my pillow so I can protect myself. Good night, young Dahmer.”

  It was a shitty thing to do, I know. P.J. could never hurt anyone and he is probably up in that classroom right now thinking that he is going to die with the damaged brain of a serial killer. I want to get to him and tell him that he had a perf
ectly normal brain, that scientists were never going to dissect his brain and add it to their serial killer collection.

  At the top of the steps I pull on Beth’s hand to get her to stop. “Listen,” I whisper. “What’s that?” We both freeze, turning our ears toward the sound, the soft slap of feet coming up behind us on the steps. All I can think about was the puddle of blood I slipped on below and had visions of a crazy man with a gun or a knife creeping toward us. “Run,” I yell louder than I mean to, and as Beth drags me down the hallway I glance over my shoulder to see a small shape at the top of the steps. “Wait,” I say, stopping suddenly, letting go of Beth’s hand. I walk cautiously back down the dark hallway toward the shape. A little girl. Five, maybe six years old. She has long blond hair held back with two barrettes topped with yellow bows. She is wearing black-and-yellow leggings and a sweatshirt that says My Brother Did It. “Are you okay?” I ask. She nods, but it looks like she is going to cry. I glance back over my shoulder toward Beth for help, but she has disappeared. “Where is your teacher?” I ask.

  “I was in the bathroom and when I went back to the room the door was locked.” Tears start coming down her cheeks and she begins to cry loudly.

  “Shhh,” I say. “Have you seen anyone at all?”

  She shakes her head and sniffles. “All the doors are locked.”

  I’m not sure what to do. I can’t leave her here all alone, but I don’t want to take her with me. I think of the door at the bottom of the steps that leads to the parking lot. She’d be a lot safer outside than in here. I consider sending her down the steps by herself; it would only take her a few seconds to get to the bottom. Then I think of the puddle of blood and can only imagine what she would do if she stepped in that mess. I would successfully scar another child for life and I’m only thirteen.

  “Come on, I’ll get you out of here.” She looks like she doesn’t quite believe me. “What’s your name?” I ask.

  “Faith,” she answers, wrinkling her nose at the blood on my clothes and hands.

  “It’s nothing,” I tell her like it’s no big deal, but I feel like I could throw up and want more than anything to get the blood off of me. “I’m Augie,” I tell her. I think about going back the way we came, down the steps and to the door that leads to the teacher’s parking lot, but the thought of the smeared puddle of blood at the top of the stairs puts an end to that. “Let’s go.” I grab her hand and together we run down the long hallway, past closed classroom doors toward another staircase that leads to the gym and to another set of doors to the outside. As we run, through the windows in the classroom doors, I catch glimpses of teachers and students huddled together in corners just like Mr. Ellery had our class do. In one of the classrooms it is different, though. In one quick look over my shoulder I could see that something else was happening in this classroom. In P.J.’s classroom. I stop and peek through the window. Instead of all the kids crowded into a far corner of the room, these students are sitting in their desks, looking straight ahead, their faces scared. P.J. is in the front row and looks like he is all right. I want to grab him and bring him with me and Faith. From where I’m standing I can’t see if his teacher or the bad guy, whoever he is, is in the classroom. I can’t tell. I think of Beth and wonder where she went, hoping that she got out. I stare hard at P.J., trying to send my brain waves to him, telling him to look my way.

  I feel Faith tugging on my hand and I look down at her. “Come on,” she whispers.

  “My brother,” I tell her. “He’s in there.”

  “Please, I want to go home,” she says more loudly.

  “Shhh,” I say more angrily than I mean to, and she begins to cry.

  “Shhh, Faith, he’ll hear you,” I say more softly, and start to pull her down the hallway.

  I’m out of breath when Faith and I reach the end of the hallway and stop. “It’s okay, I’m sorry,” I whisper to Faith. “I’m not mad.”

  When I look back toward P.J.’s classroom, I see the door slowly open and the head of a woman peeks out. P.J.’s teacher, Mrs. Oliver. Nothing in her face makes me think that she has seen us, but she makes a waving motion with her hand, as if trying to push us away from the classroom. I know then that he is in that room. Whoever he is. With P.J. I squeeze Faith’s hand more tightly and together we tiptoe down the stairs. The closest door to the outside is just through the gymnasium, which is dark and ghostly quiet. “I don’t want to go in there,” Faith cries, trying to pull away from me.

  I have to agree with her. It is way creepy, but now that I’m sure that the man is upstairs, I know this is the safest, quickest way to get Faith out of the school. “It’s okay, I promise,” I tell her. “We’ll run through the gym to those doors.” The lights in the gym are off, but I can see the gray sky and bright snow through the glass doors that lead to a larger parking lot, the one where everyone parks for basketball games and school programs. “See,” I tell her. “It’s brighter out there than in here. There are people outside waiting for you. Your mom and dad, I bet.” I hope that this is true. That her mother and father are bundled up outside waiting. I wonder if my mom and dad have any idea of what’s going on. But they are thousands of miles away and I’m sure that it isn’t on the news. Who cares about a tiny town in Iowa? Grandpa probably knows what is going on and is worried about P.J. I know he loves P.J. Me, not so much. Not that I’ve made liking me easy.

  Faith bites her lip and says, “I’m scared.”

  “I am, too,” I admit. “Let’s close our eyes and run.” Faith takes a deep breath, nods and squinches her eyes up tight. I do the same, minus the eye-closing, and we run, our feet squeaking as we cross the wooden gym floor. Once we reach the glass doors I can see that it is snowing, big, fat flakes that P.J. would want to catch on his tongue. Through the snow, at the edge of the parking lot, I can also see a line of police cars with their headlights facing the school. Dark figures are walking back and forth, hopping up and down once in a while as if they are trying to keep warm. “Right there.” I point toward the police cars. “Run that way. Someone will be there to help you find your mom and dad.”

  “Aren’t you coming?” Faith asks, still holding my hand.

  “No, I have to go find my brother. You’ll be fine. That’s the police out there.”

  “Come with me, please,” she begs.

  “I can’t. I’ve got to go find my brother,” I explain. Faith looks unsure. ”But when we get out, I’ll come find you. I promise,” I add.

  She shakes her head no and begins to cry. “I’m scared. They look scary.” She buries her face in my stomach. I can barely see the dark shapes through the heavy snow and they do look scary. Like aliens.

  “Okay,” I finally say. “I’ll come out with you, but once you’re safe, I’m going back.” She thinks about this for a second and then nods. I look around for something to block open the door, knowing that it will lock behind us once it closes. I see a basketball in the corner, probably what the gym class was playing before the Code Red came over the intercom. I wonder where they all are, if they made it outside or are hiding somewhere. I pick up the basketball, push open the door and we step outside. The cold air hits my face. Faith shivers next to me, and our feet sink into the three or four inches of new snow. “Wait a second,” I say to Faith as I carefully set the basketball on the ground between the door and frame so it won’t close and lock behind us. Across the parking lot I see three dark figures stop pacing and take a step toward us. One lifts something long and thin. A shotgun. The wind whips my hair around my face and I’m afraid that it will blow the door shut, locking me out here and away from P.J. I wave my arms in the air to show them that I don’t have a gun. “Hey!” I yell. “We’re just kids!” We take a careful step forward; the police officer doesn’t lower the gun. “We’re just kids!” I shout again.

  One of the police officers comes slowly toward us, one hand on a hip, one hand reaching
out toward us. “Keep your hands up,” a voice says. A woman’s voice. Faith grabs my hand again and together we raise our arms. “Walk slowly forward,” she says, and we do. As she gets closer I see that it’s the same officer that was trying to get me to climb out of the classroom earlier. “What’s your name?” she asks as she inches toward us.

  “I’m Augie Baker and this is Faith…” I suddenly realize I don’t know Faith’s last name.

  “Garrity,” she whispers.

  “Garrity,” I shout. “Faith Garrity.”

  “I’m Officer Barrett,” she says. “I’m here to help you. Just keep coming forward slowly. Are you hurt at all?”

  “No, we’re fine,” I say. By the time we reach her, my face is numb with cold and my shoes are filled with snow. The policeman with the shotgun finally lowers it and is talking into a walkie-talkie.

  “Is anyone hurt in there? Have you seen the intruder?”

  “I didn’t see him. There was bl…” I start to tell her about the puddle of blood I slipped on when over her shoulder I see an ambulance and someone wearing a big fur-trimmed parka heading our way with a pile of blankets.

  “What did you see?” Officer Barrett asks as I wiggle my hand free from Faith’s.

  “Nothing,” I say as I take a step backward and look behind me at the gym door, still propped open with the basketball.

  “Come on, let’s get you warmed up,” Officer Barrett says, trying to put an arm around me, but I sidestep her reach and start running back to the school, slipping a bit on the snowy ground.

  “What the hell?” she shouts, reaching out to grab me, but I’ve caught her by surprise. Just a few more yards and I’ll be back in the building.

  Chapter 44:

  Holly

  I’ve always known that I was a little bit different from the other girls from Broken Branch. I don’t mean that I think I was better than them; if anything I wished I would have been more like them. I put them into three categories: the girls who wanted to get married right out of high school and start having babies, the girls who wanted to go away to college and then come back to Broken Branch and settle down, get married and then start having babies, and me. All I wanted to do was get the hell out of Broken Branch. Yes, I ran away with a boy from Broken Branch, but we both knew it wasn’t going to last. It was kind of like jumping off a bluff at the Pits, the sand and gravel pits just south of town that were filled with water. It’s so much easier to leap off a cliff holding someone’s hand. There’s the thrill of being up so high, seeing the jagged, rocky walls of the quarry, of knowing that your body could hit the sides if you didn’t plan your jump just right. The problem was I kept trying to find someone to jump off those cliffs with.