Chapter 2

A.D. 2009

"Come on, Honey!" Karen whispered, snaking her hands sensuously inside his shirt and kissing him warmly on the back of the neck. "We're going to be late for the movie!"

"Okay, just let me finish sending this one last resume," he replied, leaning back into the kiss, "and I'll be right out. You guys go ahead and load up."

"Something will come up, Will," Karen said, hearing the desperation in his voice. "You're too good at what you do. Somebody's bound to hire you soon."

"I keep trying, sweetie," he sighed, "but I'm getting the feeling that all they want is young, impressionable kids straight out of college that they can convince to work nights and weekends for the promise of stock options. As far as they're concerned, I'm too old, too experienced, too expensive, and too family oriented. After a year and a half, the only interviews I get are those where I don't list too much experience, and once they see me, it's like a curtain falls across their faces. It doesn't matter how well I answer their questions, they already know I'm not right for the job."

He hit 'Send' and yet another resume was instantly transported to a server somewhere in nearby Silicon Valley.

"Come on," He said, standing abruptly, "Let's forget about this and take Stacy to the movies. If I can't be a success at what I've trained for, at least I can try to give my daughter some happiness."

Arm in arm, Will and Karen walked into the small living room to find ten year old Stacy waiting patiently.

"Come on, Sprite!" Will said, holding out his arms to his daughter. "Let's go see a movie!"

"Daddy!" Stacy's face lit up on seeing her father. Blonde curls flying, she launched herself into his waiting arms. "I was afraid you were going to make us late again!"

"I know, Sugar," He said, lifting her slight body onto his shoulders. "I'm sorry about last time. I just had to finish applying for that job."

"I know, Daddy," Stacy said sympathetically. "I'm just glad we're not going to be late this time!"

The drive to the multiplex cinema took only about five minutes, and for the whole trip, Stacy regaled them with tales of her friends, Sponge Bob Squarepants, and Kim Possible. When she ran out of subject matter, Stacy simply created some by making up a couple of stories.

Will bought the tickets at the window while Karen and Stacy waited by the door.

"Theater Seven," The pimple-faced kid said, semi-politely, as he tore their tickets in half. "Down this hallway, to your left."

There were only a few people in the theater so far and they were able to grab Stacy's favorite seats: four rows from the front, center seats.

"Can we have popcorn this time, Daddy?" Stacy asked as they settled into the plush seats.

Will gave Karen a pleading glance over Stacy's head, receiving a smile and a 'why not' shrug in return. "Why don't you get us all sodas, too?"

"You sure?" He asked, knowing how tight their budget was these days.

"I'm sure." Karen smiled. Inwardly, she cringed at the thought of having to tell another bill collector that the payment would be a little late, but they all needed to forget about their financial troubles for a little while, and in the long run, popcorn and drinks, even at these prices, wouldn't make that much difference.

Will stopped in the restroom to empty his bladder, making sure he wouldn't have to get up during the movie, and by the time he got to the lobby, the line for snacks was very long.

Finally, after arguing with the cashier about short-changing him, Will headed back down the hallway to the theater. He could hear the previews playing as he tried to balance the little cardboard tray on one hand so he could open the door with the other.

Without warning, the door burst outward, almost taking his hand off as it slammed with tremendous force into the wall of the entrance hallway, followed instantly by a stupendous blast that knocked Will backward, drinks and popcorn flying.

In the aftermath of the blast, he could hear screaming and moans from inside the theater, through the door that now hung askew on its hinges. Knowing it couldn't have been, but hoping, anyway, that this was some sort of movie special effect, Will scrambled to his feet and rushed into the darkened theater.

The projector was still running, spraying what light there was on the tattered shreds of the projection screen. In the dim light, Will's eyes began to make out the carnage left by the horrific blast. Blood and gore were everywhere. Around the edges of the theater and up near the back row, a few people writhed and screamed in agony. The rest were simply bloody, unrecognizable mounds of torn, twitching flesh.

Heart in his throat, Will stumbled down the aisle to the fourth row, hoping against hope that Stacy had had to go to the bathroom, or that she and Karen had gone to see what was taking him so long. His mind refused, despite the evidence of his eyes, to identify the two ravaged carcasses next to his empty seat as his wife and daughter. The sight of a familiar pink ribbon in bloody blonde curls filled him with horror.

"Karen!" he cried, leaning over to check for a pulse. "No! Goddamnit! Karen! Wake up!"

He shook the limp carcass that only moments before had been his lovely wife, succeeding only in causing it to slump further into the seat.

Feverishly, he reached across to Stacy, seeking the artery on her neck that would tell him that she, at least, had survived, only to find his fingers submerged in wet, shredded flesh!

"No! Goddamnit, no!" he cried, refusing to believe that either of them could be dead.

On autopilot, he knelt between them on the tattered fabric of the seats, using his weight to force the reclining seats backward. With a hand on each of their chests, he began applying compressions, knowing, somewhere deep inside himself, that life could not be cruel enough to take them both from him. Ignoring the fact that each breath he forced into their mouths bubbled out of their throats, he struggled to keep compressions going on both of their chests. Vaguely he wondered why his right wrist felt so strange, but it was unimportant. He must keep them alive until help arrived!

Will did not know how long he worked on Stacy and Karen, but suddenly, gently, someone was lifting him away.

"Come on, buddy," the guy said, shining a flashlight in his face. "We'll take over now."

"Oh, thank God!" Will said, "Please! You've got to get them to a hospital!"

"We'll take care of them, mister," said another guy, "You go on out and let 'em look at you so we can do our jobs."

"I'm allright," he said, struggling feebly to return to his wife and daughter. "They're the ones that need help!"

"You need to let us do our jobs, mister," they told him again, and he didn't have the strength to fight against the guy in the dark blue coverall with 'EMT' lettered on the back. Docilely, he let himself be led out of the theater.

Flashing lights in blue and red filled his vision as the harsh, static laden sound of emergency radios assaulted his ears.

"Stacy!" he cried, struggling again to get back to his family. "Karen!"

"Take it easy buddy," The paramedic told him, placing a gentle but firm restraining hand on his shoulder. "You don't want to go back in there."

"But my wife, my daughter!" He struggled feebly against the hands that tried to hold him back.

"I'm sorry, sir," The paramedic said sympathetically, "But if your wife and daughter were the two to whom you were trying to give CPR, there's nothing anyone can do for them, so just lie down and let me check out your injuries."

It took a few seconds for that to sink into his brain.

"Injuries?" He asked, looking down at his bloody clothing. "I-I'm not hurt. I was just coming back from the snack bar when ... Oh God! Stacy! Karen! Are they... ? Were they... ?"

He couldn't bear to finish the question, nor could he accept the reluctant nod he got from the paramedic.

"NO! You've got to help them!" Will struggled again to rise from the gurney. The paramedic's response stopped him more effectively than the hands on his shoulders.

"I wish to God I could, buddy!" the Paramedic shook his head at his own memories. "I wish I could help all of them! Thirteen friggin' theaters full of them, GOD DAMN IT! All that training, all those refresher courses! None of it can bring a single one of 'em back to life! You're one of the lucky ones, buddy, even if you don't feel like it right now. The rest aren't much more than hamburger!"

Like a switch thrown in his brain, Will began to understand the magnitude of the catastrophe, and his brain, always a sucker for a problem to solve began chewing on what had happened. The pain was still there — the empty, aching, feeling in his gut, and the inability to grasp that his whole life had been shattered — but for now, his mind had something else to occupy it, and he grasped at it like a drowning man for a life-ring.

"Thirteen theaters?" He asked. "But the blast came from inside the theater!"

"Yeah, there must have been a separate device planted in each theater. Every one like the one where we found you. Thank god two of 'em were still being cleaned." The paramedic felt down his right arm and Will winced in sudden pain. "That's what I thought. Looks like you've got a fractured wrist there. Good thing you were out of direct line of the shrapnel. Look, I'm just supposed to be doing triage here, but if you'll hold still for a minute I'll splint that up to hold you until you can get over to the hospital for a proper cast."

"Of course," His mind said for him while his heart struggled not to burst. "A claymore planted behind each movie screen. What was the shrapnel made of?"

"We found a bunch of nails and ball-bearings embedded in stuff - and in people." The paramedic pumped a rubber bulb and the plastic sleeve he had velcroed around Will's arm began to inflate.

Will grimaced as the sleeve put pressure on the fracture. As the paramedic was finishing up, a man in an overcoat, who could only have been a police detective, approached with notebook in hand.

"How do you do, sir," he said, holding out his empty hand, then withdrawing it when he saw the condition of Will's arm. "Detective Davis."

Will just nodded, not knowing what else to do or say.

"I realize this is a difficult time for you, sir," He said, wetting the tip of his pencil with his tongue, and Will had a momentary flash of being in an old B movie. Sure enough, the cop was using a two inch stub of a #2 wooden pencil with most of the eraser worn away. "But if you could answer a few questions while the event is still fresh in your mind, it might help us get to the bottom of this more quickly."

"Of course," Will answered, absent-mindedly, his brain still clinging to the problem of how the devices had been planted, in the vain hope that he wouldn't have to think about the grisly remains of the love of his life and his precious daughter.

"Let's start with your name," The policeman said, pencil poised over his pad.

"Uh, Will. Will Masters," He said.

"Will. Is that short for 'William?'" the cop queried.

"Uh, no," Will struggled to think. "Wilson. Wilson Masters. Sorry."

"No problem, buddy," The cop sounded sympathetic. "Were you here by yourself?"

"No, I came with my ... with my..." Will broke down sobbing and the cop turned a questioning eye to the paramedic.

"We found him trying to give CPR to what was left of a woman and a little girl," The paramedic filled in. "He's been asking about his wife and daughter."

"I know this is hard, Will," the cop said, putting a hand on his shoulder. "Can you confirm that you were here with your wife and daughter?"

For some reason, the policeman's sympathy only made things worse and Will sobbed even harder when the big hand settled on his shoulder, but managed to nod in the affirmative.

"What were their names?"

"S-stacy..." Will answered, struggling to keep his grief from taking control again. "She's my daughter. Prettiest little girl in the world!"

"I'll bet," The officer said. "What did she look like?"

"Blonde, curly hair," Will lost himself in the vision for a moment, "down to her shoulders. The brightest blue eyes you ever saw, and when she smiles, it lights up the whole room!"

"How old was she?"

"Ten," Will answered, clinging to the memory. "We just celebrated her tenth birthday. We couldn't afford to give her both a gift and a party, but she wanted to have the party instead of a gift, so she could share her happiness with her friends. She's always been like that, you know. Give you the shirt off her back if she thinks you need it more than her."

"What about your wife?" Will was staring off into space and didn't notice the cop swiping at his eyes.

"Karen," Will's voice softened as he thought of the love of his life. "She's my rock. I don't know how I would have made it through these last couple of years without her. Stacy has her eyes, and even though her hair is a little darker than Stacy's they wear it the same way. Like two peas in a pod!"

"How old was she?" The cop asked, cutting his reminiscence short.

"Thirty-three," Will smiled, thinking of how she had come into his life when he thought he was condemned to lifelong bachelorhood. "Way too young for me, but she seems — seemed happy being with me."

At the sudden realization that he had been speaking of them as if they were still alive, Will broke down again. The policeman waited a few moments before continuing.

"Were there any others here with you?"

"N-uh, n-no," Will struggled to get his grief under control.

"Don't take this wrong, Will," the cop said, "but how did you manage to get away relatively unscathed?"

"I-I went to get p-popcorn!" His shoulders shook for several seconds. "S-shouldn't have left them! Couldn't really afford the damn popcorn anyway! I should have been with them! If I'd been ten seconds faster I would have been with them! If only I hadn't been so damned upset about the change! Who cares if it's a nickel short?!"

"What happened then?" The policeman asked.

"I was taking the popcorn and drinks back to the theater. D-door blew out as I was reaching for the handle. Guess that's how I got this," He held up his splinted wrist.

"I ran inside," His eyes pleaded with the cop for the forgiveness he could never grant himself, "but it was too late! There was blood everywhere. The floor was slippery..."

Suddenly, mucous blew out of his nose as he snorted with bitter, uncontrollable laughter. Mercifully, the paramedic had some wipes handy.

Haunted eyes stared at the cop as he continued. "I said 'excuse me' to the people I stepped over to get to them! They were dead, and I said 'excuse me!'"

"Where were your wife and daughter sitting, sir?" The cop tried not to look into those eyes. He'd seen enough of them in his career, and didn't need another pair coming to him in his dreams.

"Fourth row, center seats," Will said. "Stacy always wants to sit ... God NO! Stacy!"

Will's sobbing took several minutes to subside this time. Every thought of Stacy brought with it the image of Karen's smiling face, the care lines showing on it of late, and he could not come to grips with the idea of never seeing them again.

When he had calmed some, the policeman continued. "Just a couple more questions, sir. Which theater was it?"

Will struggled to remember, and then the image of the pimple-faced ticket taker came to him. "Theater seven. Down this hallway, to your left."

The cop gave him a funny look, but decided he would be a little crazy, too, if he was in this guy's shoes, and didn't pursue it. "Can you think of anything you saw that was out of the ordinary? Anyone who seemed out of place?"

Again, Will struggled to think, to force his brain to relive the minutes before the blast. Nothing — except...

"I don't know," He said. "There was a guy with a beard. He came out of a service door into the main hallway as I was coming back with the popcorn. I don't know if it means anything."

"Maybe, maybe not." The cop said. "Can you describe him?"

"I only glimpsed him in passing," Will replied. "Kinda medium height. Dark hair and beard. One eyebrow — you know, the kind that goes all the way across. Hawk nose. I think what struck me though was his eyes. They just seemed kind of blank. No emotion."

"That's pretty good, Will," The officer told him. "When you've had your arm taken care of, would you mind sitting with a sketch artist to see if he can come up with a likeness of the guy?"

"Sure," Will gave the paramedic a questioning glance.

"We need the ambulance for the more severely wounded, here, buddy," He said. "I don't mean to be callous, but your physical injuries aren't all that serious, so you're going to have to find your own way to the hospital."

"It's okay," Will said, "I've got a car around here somewhere."

He tried to dig into his right front pocket for the keys, only to be stymied by the inflated splint on his arm.

"Here, let me help you with that, Will," The policeman said.

Will felt a bit self-conscious as the officer dug into his pocket and came out with the keys to his Camry.

"Do you have someone you can call, Will?" The cop asked, once he had possession of Will's keys. "Someone who can drive you to the hospital?"

"The only one I can think of is my sister-in-law, Katherine, but she was supposed to go to L.A. this weekend."

"You gonna be okay to drive?" He asked, holding onto the keys.

"Yeah," Will said, actually taking time to think about it. "I'll be careful officer. Thanks."

The policeman studied him for a moment before handing him the keys. "See that you do. I've got enough problems here, without having to deal with traffic accidents."

Will shuffled out to the back rows of the parking lot where he had had to park, and wandered around looking for his car. He was beginning to think that, on top of everything else, it had been stolen. Finally, he realized that he was on the wrong side of the lot.

When he found the car, he leaned against it for long moments, just soaking up its familiarity. It was awkward getting his seatbelt on with the splint on his wrist, and he turned to ask Karen for help, only to realize that she would never again be there to help.

Tears filled his eyes and anger his heart as he fought the belt, finally getting it latched. "Goddamn complicated things!" He yelled. "Why the hell couldn't they make it easier?"

His anger boiling inside, he wiped his tears on his sleeve and turned automatically to check that Stacy had her belt on too, the rage welling up again as he encountered her empty place in the back seat of the Camry.

"Why me?!" He cried at the roof of the car. "What the hell have I ever done to you?! First my job, and now my family! What the hell else do you want from me?"

The tires on the Camry squealed as he tore out of the lot, just missing a bus that was pulling out of the nearby bus stop.

Every driver on the road seemed determined to keep him from his destination, and as he finally pulled into the parking lot of the hospital, Will almost clipped a wheelchair being pushed by an orderly.

It didn't help his anger and frustration any that he had to wait while the serious trauma patients, just beginning to arrive by ambulance from the theater bombing were seen first. As he watched the mangled, moaning bodies being wheeled in, one after another, though, his anger shifted focus. He was too logical to continue to be mad at the emergency room personnel, who were, after all, only doing their jobs. Instead, he began thinking about the bearded man and his imagined co-conspirators. That's who needed killing...

While he was waiting, a uniformed policeman approached, followed by a grey-haired, bespectacled woman carrying a laptop.