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Run away from the food trucks!” Julia shouted at the top of her lungs, racing into the parking lot.
The crowd reacted instantly, terrified. Heads whipped around.
Women screamed. Children cried. The lines at the food trucks erupted into chaos.
Mothers grabbed toddlers and ran. Couples raced off together. People fled in fear.
“Run away from the trucks! There’s a bomb!” Julia kept shouting, hustling away as many people as she could. An older man tripped over an abandoned stroller. She lifted him up, and he kept running.
The crowd fled the parking lot in pandemonium. Workers piled out of the food trucks and took off. Families jumped up from the picnic tables and started running.
Suddenly Julia saw Paul racing over with a cadre of uniformed police. “Paul, the bomb’s in the BBQ truck! Get everybody out of here!” she shouted, but the police were already in action.
“Leave the area immediately!” The cops shouted, fanning out in the parking lot and picnic area. They gathered people and rushed them from the scene.
“Everybody, run!” Paul bolted to an older couple and hurried them from the lot.
“Run, run, run!” Julia yelled, hurrying a panicked woman away.
BA-BOOM! The BBQ truck exploded with a deafening blast. A percussive wave propelled Julia backward. An orange fireball burst into flame, throwing off heat and light. Metal chunks of the truck flew into the air.
Julia looked up from the asphalt, dazed. She couldn’t move. She couldn’t hear. A fireball raged a super-heated orange. Smoke billowed around her.
She couldn’t catch her breath. She gasped, coughing. People lay on the asphalt around her, bleeding. She tried to scramble backward.
Another food truck exploded, then another and another, igniting each other. Debris flew from the trucks, shooting splinters of wood and shards of metal.
Julia raised her arms to shield her face.
In the next moment, everything went black.