Today’s hot lunch was pizza and fries along with a packet of sliced apples and a pint of whole milk. It was a popular lunch, and many of the kids had convinced their parents last night to give them money to buy it when it was posted at five p.m. yesterday on the school website.
The room was noisy. Kids were happy because they were at lunch. It was always a highlight of the day. And they were looking forward to their vacation and the toys they were hoping to get.
As the joy of the season rolled through the cafeteria, three men slipped through a side door of the building that opened onto the playground. Once inside, they pulled gray ski masks down over their faces as they hesitated in a short, narrow hallway just outside the big room. When they were ready, they drew their automatic weapons from beneath their coats, burst through the hallway door, and sprayed the room with bullets.
Thirty seconds later they were sprinting across the playground to their initial escape vehicle and its waiting driver. Three minutes later they’d switched vehicles at a nearby strip mall, ten minutes after that they’d switched again, and within half an hour they’d made it back to the apartment complex on the other side of town where they had been holing up for the last three months.
Yesterday the team had opened fire on an unsuspecting crowd at a huge mall in the suburbs of St. Louis and thrown the city into chaos as part of the initial, coordinated attack at that and ten other malls around the country. Now the team was independent, as were the other nine death squads still operating. They were much like a wolf pack roaming the landscape for the next kill — which they’d found in the elementary school. There were so many “soft” targets to choose from, it was like shooting fish in a barrel. But they had to be careful, too. They wanted to remain free to kill for as long as possible. So, for the next few days they’d be eating fast food and playing video games at the apartment complex. Then they’d hunt again.
Sixteen people at Parkview Elementary had died immediately in the terrible attack. The body count included twelve children, two teachers, a cafeteria staff member, and a security guard who was armed with a 9mm pistol. Forty-two had been wounded — seven critically.
One young couple had lost both of their children in the attack — a boy in the second grade and a little girl in first.
Imelda’s face drained of color when she saw her little boy, and she began straining wildly at the ropes securing her to the chair. “If you touch him, if you so much as scratch him, I’ll kill you!” she shouted as despair morphed into rage. “I swear to God I’ll kill you!”
Unaffected, Maddux handcuffed the little boy to a vertical pipe leading to the house’s water heater, and he began to cry. “You won’t have that chance.”
“Then they’ll kill you!” she screamed as her rant turned maniacal. “They’ll rip you apart limb from limb for this!”
When the little boy’s wrists were snapped tightly to the copper pipe, Maddux’s gaze rose triumphantly to hers. “‘They’?” he asked as he stalked to where she sat and leaned down close again. “Who do you mean, ‘they’?”
“I didn’t mean it,” she hissed before she spat in his face. “I misspoke, you animal.”
“I don’t think so.” He smiled sadistically even as he calmly wiped her warm saliva off his skin. She probably assumed he’d strike her after spitting on him that way. So it would scare her more when he didn’t. “I know exactly what you meant. You meant the men who killed all those innocent people at the mall in Tysons Corner yesterday.”
“What people?”
He chuckled as he moved back to where the little boy stood. “Don’t give me that, Imelda. Talk to me, or your son dies.”
“Get away from him!”
“Mommy!” the boy shouted as Maddux skinned a long knife from the sheath hanging off his belt. “Mommy, help me, please.”
The long, serrated blade glistened in the light of the lone bulb dangling from the ceiling. Maddux stepped behind the boy, grabbed him by the hair, pulled his chin up, and placed the blade at his tiny throat. “Talk to me, woman. Tell me what you know.”
Her rage evaporated as the tip of the blade punctured her son’s soft skin. “Don’t kill him.” Blood seeped from the wound and dripped down his neck. “Oh, God, don’t kill him. Kill me instead.”
“Mommy! Mommy, help me!”
“Talk to me!” Maddux shouted, raising his voice as his predatory instincts reached the surface and his blood boiled. “Tell me everything.”
“I can’t tell you anything. I don’t know anything.”
“I’ll give you one more chance, Imelda.”
“Mommy, Mommy. I’m scared!”
“I swear I know nothing.”
“Mommy, I—”
Maddux drew the razor-sharp blade deliberately and deeply across the boy’s throat. The boy gurgled for a few moments as he mouthed words soundlessly. Then he exhaled heavily one final time, his tiny chin fell to his chest as Maddux let go of his hair, and his body crumpled to the floor — twisted in an awkward way around the pipe.
The woman’s tears began to flow like swollen rivers running to the sea. “You, you…you are the devil.” It was all she could gasp. For several moments she hyperventilated, unable to speak as she barely maintained consciousness. “I hate you.”
“Get in line.”
“You will pay.”
“We’ll see.” She probably wished she could pass out, but she wouldn’t. Her breathing was already turning more regular. “Now you’ll talk to me,” he whispered as he moved behind her, bent down, and put his lips to her ear. “Now you’ll tell me everything I want to know.”
“You can do anything you want to me now.” Imelda sobbed loudly. “I don’t care anymore about anything.”
“Yes you do, sweetheart. Oh, yes you do.”
“You really are the devil,” she whispered. “No person could be this evil.”
“The term is committed,” Maddux said. “No one can be this committed. And yes, I am. Now, who carried out those attacks yesterday? Who killed all those people in Tysons Corner?”
“I will tell you nothing.”
He moved in front of her again. “You know, don’t you?”
“Maybe,” she whispered, “but you’ll never get it out of me. You think you’re committed to your way of life, but you have no idea.” She glanced down at her dead son. “I won’t trade what I know for anything. Nothing you could do would change that.” She nodded at the boy’s body. “I’ve already proven that.”
For a few moments Maddux stared at Imelda in complete and utter awe. The mother-child relationship was the strongest bond in nature as far as he was concerned. No other came close in terms of loyalty and sacrifice. But she’d watched her son die — her most critical life’s work had been snuffed out in front of her, and she could have saved him. But she hadn’t.
Maddux’s awe turned to fear. It was an emotion he rarely experienced. Now he knew how committed these people were to their objective; now he understood what they intended to do. They meant to change America’s way of life forever, to reverse the freedoms its people had enjoyed for hundreds of years. They meant for everyone to fear for their lives every moment of the day. They wanted to turn the idyllic American existence into a nightmare ruled by paranoia, and they didn’t care what it took to do it.
What made this all so powerful for him was that he suddenly realized they might succeed. These were people of unprecedented will. They would do anything for their cause. The proof of that had unfolded right here in front of him. They would sacrifice their sons and daughters for the cause, even watch as they died. For them the whole was so much more important than any of the pieces.