Chapter Nine
Creed
It was a single shot that rang out.
A crack of fire power rode the wind. The bullet hit the speaker that screeched and sizzled, filling the air with a painful cacophony of noise mere feet from the people who had gathered on the stage.
Even as Creed jumped into action, his brain was assessing.
His first thought was for Auralia.
From his security post, he had kept an eye on the reporting team and knew that they had stood up to record when the speeches began.
When the shot rang out, the women, seasoned in battle conditions, didn’t play around. They were there filming, CRACK, and they slipped seamlessly behind the broad trunk of a hardwood.
Was that gunfire caused by something Rou had missed?
Creed and Rou had spent their time stationed at the security table, where the local sheriff’s deputy continued to check the bags of any stragglers as they arrived.
Then Rougarou gave them a sniff.
Creed had felt certain that Rou had been on her game.
The search had turned up three ankle holsters, a few kidney holsters, an interesting garter holster, and a bra holster.
Rou had one hit that wasn’t a weapon, but the woman said she’d just been at the range, so she had gun smoke residue on her clothes.
Creed told Rou, "Good hit," and Rou got her tug-of-war game.
When Creed asked the folks to lock their weapons in their vehicles, he had anticipated pushback from the attendees, but Rou had that handled.
With her puppy charm and sweet affection, her whole body was wagging with excitement each time she got a hit and alerted to the scent of ammunition; folks didn’t get bent out of shape.
Generally, they’d chuckled as they returned to their trucks to lock up their guns and then came back to present themselves to Rou for a sniff test that cleared them.
Creed had documented Rou’s good work and had been looking forward to reporting their success.
He had no idea where that shot had originated.
Now that he and Rue had found cover, Creed waited for Striker to assign roles to each of the operators as they facilitated the situation.
Creed had his eyes on the stage. Interesting what happened: Mayor Early and Representative Braxton curved their arms over their heads and curled over.
They were older men, in their seventies, and probably had limited experience being fired upon.
They started to jog left, then turned and jogged right, then left again and off into the wings.
The cooler head was Morrison, though Auralia had said he had never been in the military. He simply held his arms wide to herd the women and walked off the stage.
Training or not, everyone at the scene assessed the situation, and by design or by the insistence of their limbic system, everyone acted in survival mode.
There was a clear demarcation in the audience.
Those who went to school after the Columbine shooting followed their live-shooter training.
Older generations startled, cast their gazes about; then they did the lemming thing, which was good. If you didn’t know, follow behind someone who did. Many of them, though, couldn’t get off the ground, so they rolled to their stomachs and covered their heads with their hands.
Babies were dragged from strollers. Parents threw their bodies over their children.
Some lay flat, others ran for the back of the stage, where the tree line would afford them concealment and some cover.
Creed bet that a lot of the stage-runner group were remembering the Las Vegas mass shooting when survival was much more likely behind the scaffolding.
What didn’t make sense—and what was a “what in the actual hell are you thinking?” response was what Auralia and Doli were doing right now.
They’d emerged from behind their tree, and there was Auralia, reporting like it was a day in the life, and Doli was recording.
And, yeah, it was just a day in their life. They were a hot-spot reporting team.
But seeing it in real time tied Creed’s guts in a knot.
Did he want to race over there, tackle them, and get them clear?
Hell to the yeah.
Even though it was the wrong damned thing for him to do—interrupt their work—was he considering it?
Must be, because he’d grabbed up Rou’s lead and slid a foot forward.
Who the hell was he? What the hell did he think he was doing?
The command in his ear was to hold his position while Jack, who had commandeered some kid’s drone, searched the area for the shooter.
Creed wasn’t some kind of macho shit running in to save ladies in distress.
Flip this around: what if she ran in and interfered with his work?
Yeah, that would go down badly.
Creed sent his gaze three-sixty until it landed on Gator. Creed sent his thoughts out like an arrow, the way they’d done on the battlefield. Gator was pulling children into his arms as their mother scrambled to her feet. But he stopped to meet Creed’s gaze.
Creed turned in the direction of Auralia, with her mic in front of her face.
Gator assessed the women and then turned back to the children. He must sense that they were fine. Good call on the ballistic vests, though.
Had he and Rou missed anything? Had they let a gun into the crowd?
The thought cycled again, only to be discarded when Creed heard Striker come over his comms. “Strike Force. The shooter was on the roof of an adjacent property. Now that he sees the drone, he’s climbing down.
Jack is tracking the shooter's progress, but has only about fifteen minutes of battery time. Let’s make sure that there’s only a single shooter.
In a minute, once everyone’s nervous systems settle down, there’s going to be a stampede for the cars.
Creed, stay in place at the security gate and try to get folks moving slowly to avoid causing injury. Over.”
“Creed. Wilco.”
“The rest of the team,” Striker continued, “those who are frail or have low mobility, along with children, are to go into the woods until the agile have dashed out. We need to protect the kids from getting trampled or separated from their adult. No one is going to be thinking clearly. I’m heading to the parking lot, that’s about to become a traffic jam if not a pile-up. You have your assignments. Over.”
The comms filled with “Copy, moving. Out.”
Since Creed was in position, he took a moment and sent a quick text to Auralia.
Creed: Get out of the parking lot now before the stampede.
And that was it.
Creed wanted to be in action. But here he stood babysitting the sheriff’s deputy who was leaning against the tree, wheezing and grabbing his chest.
“Hey man, you’re not looking good,” Creed said, not taking his eyes off Auralia as Doli pointed behind Auralia, and Auralia spun her head to follow the finger.
There were three men in suits and two women running.
Auralia and Doli fell into step behind them.
Shit.
He preferred not knowing.
Just go do your job and come home safe, chérie.
Which was the same sentiment Creed’s mamma said to him. He had aged his mamma with worry while he was deployed. She was married to a man damaged by war. Of course, she knew what could happen to her son.
Now he felt that darkness himself, and he was sorry for what he’d put his mother through. He wouldn’t have changed his choices—not that he’d change Auralia’s decisions—but he did have a newfound sympathy.
Creed had seen that Auralia had parked at the very front of the parking lot area, nose out.
It was Auralia’s mentor, Remi, along with the others in her WOMBAT sisterhood—women who worked in dangerous jobs in deadly areas—who made sure Auralia always positioned herself for success and safety.
And when he saw Remi’s experience put into play by Auralia, he was always grateful.
Creed followed their progress with his monocular.
Auralia and Doli were side by side with the men.
The daughter was falling behind. The wife was doubling over to catch her breath.
One of the suits turned back, grabbed her hand, and dragged her forward.
Based on the guy’s height, Creed thought that was Representative Braxton.
Had to be. Morrison was out front. And Mayor Early was beginning to struggle, falling back toward the daughter, Brandy.
As people in the woods saw the politicians race away, they began to run in the same direction.
If they stopped and thought about it, the target was probably one of those guys. If the sniper was repositioning for a second shot, the crowd would be running toward his rifle scope.
Auralia and Doli were rounding toward the car. They merely needed to pull the steering wheel to the left, head up the dirt road, and they’d be out on the rural highway, good and gone.
Creed swung his monocular around to get a visual on his teammates' positions. He wished someone would pull the plug on the speaker system with all its noise. It jangled the nerves, and calm was the best thing for these people.
As he thought that, he spotted Gator scrounging around by the stage.
A moment later, the silence was as startling as the screeches had been.
The air, void of sound, held its own kind of danger, like the inhale before a scream in a horror film.
A sudden boom of thunder was the jump-scare that dragged shrieks from people’s throats.
The low rumble stretched menacingly across the blue sky.
Back to the west, there was a wall of sooty swells that rolled past the horizon like a wave across ocean waters.
Nerves were taut.
The air became thick with humidity.
There was a moment of silence, and then the sound of hundreds of terrified people rose like a plague of locusts that swarmed toward the parking lot, looking for a way out of the holler.