“They’ve got machine guns! They’ve got machine guns!”
She didn’t know him by name, but he was another guest at the dinner party; the party that they shouldn’t have even gone to in the first place. It was a weeknight, what were they doing out so late?
Why did it sound like there was thunder a few minutes ago when the desert night sky was clear? Why did a flare just shoot up into the air? Why was this man running towards them like a bat out of hell, shouting about machine guns? Who are “they?” And why do they need guns? What’s happening?
Too many questions. No time to think. React. Get inside. Where is my son?
The host struggled with the keys. Seconds lasted an eternity as the party guests pushed forward, trying to get away from the unseen, unknown horror.
Then it hit.
Everybody was pushed through the doorway by the blast, and for a moment, there was absolute chaos. The glass of the floor-to-ceiling windows in the living room – the room they were sitting in no more than fifteen minutes ago – shattered into millions of tiny glittering pieces, and for one brief moment, it appeared to be raining diamonds. People were falling over each other, stumbling, tripping on the hallway rug, trying to steady themselves, trying to figure out what the hell just happened.
My Sammy, my baby… I can’t let anything happen to him.
She fell to her knees and her son fell in front of her. She instinctively wrapped her body around him, trying to shield him from – from whatever it was that was happening, holding him as close as she possibly could. She could feel things hitting her back: not the shards of glass that were flying from the windows into her skin, but substantial things… legs of people tripping over her as the blast propelled them forward, and other things that she couldn’t identify.
Later on, her husband would tell her that as they were making their way through the front door, he had turned around and looked to his left. He saw the wave of the explosion make its way towards them from where it started, over by the pool area, before he could feel the wave of it crashing into him.
The noise seemed to all fall away, and it was as if she was suspended underwater. Movements were slow and uncoordinated. She could barely breathe. She was afraid to open her eyes, for fear of what she would see around her.
Sammy! Is he okay?
The hostess obviously had the same thought. “My children!” she shrieked as she ran up the stairs to their bedrooms. Her husband was a few steps behind her, as everybody else in the confused dinner party went to the family room at the back of the house. She scooped her son up in her arms and carried him back there. Her son was looking up into her face, bewildered. His eyes wide, he clung to her tightly.
The curtains were drawn – thankfully these windows were still intact – as everybody came in. The room soon radiated with the warmth of about twelve terrified people. It was as if it became its own entity.
Somehow, at some point while they were in the family room, the lights were turned off. She didn’t recall when it happened, but she looked around, and each and every one of them was shrouded in darkness. The only light in the room came from people’s cellular phones as they tried to get a hold of their loved ones; some calling, some texting.
One woman stood out, huddled in a corner under a table. Her facial features were lit up by the two inch screen of her phone, her eyes glowing eerily as she licked her lips, and large blue tears streamed down her face while she pounded out a message to her husband.
“No idea what just happened…” “ An explosion, I think…” “Yes, we’re okay… for now,” “The windows are completely gone.” “…Guns.”
Bits and pieces of conversations. Shouldn’t we be quiet?
“Yes dad, I’ll call you when we find out more… You too, good bye.”
The last one was her husband; the loudest of the bunch, of course, easiest to pick out. Wasn’t that always the case? Or was it because his voice had simply broken through her thoughts?
“We need to get on the floor, away from the window in here,” someone said, “just in case that wasn’t it… just in case something else happens.”
Did it matter who said these things?
They all complied. They settled themselves against the walls, huddled up against one another, her son pressed up to her left side. She could feel his heart beat, could hear him breathing. He was there, and he was alive, and that was the most important thing.
My baby, my child, my Sammy. What is he thinking through all this? I can’t stand to see him going through this. What’s going through his mind? He’s sitting there so quietly… hasn’t said a word.
Her husband put a hand comfortingly on her arm as they sat there in the darkness (It truly was darkness at this point; nobody was using their telephones anymore. They were just sitting as quietly as possible and waiting.), and then suddenly he pulled his hand back, wincing in pain with a sharp intake of breath.
“You’ve still got glass in you…”
She looked down at her arm. She hadn’t even noticed.
It was at that moment that her husband realized something was terribly wrong. Up until that point, it was nothing but confusion; chaos. Even if everything had seemingly calmed down outside, for they could no longer hear gunshots ringing out into the night, their minds were all stumbling about, grasping on to anything that made sense. For her husband, the glass embedded in his wife’s arms was enough to bring it all back into sharp focus.
Gingerly, he tried to take the shards of glass out, but she held up a hand to stop him. “No,” she said. “I don’t want to bleed any more than I am, so just leave it there for now. We can deal with it later.”
Time passed with them quietly sitting. There was nothing to do but let her mind run free, faceless terrors popping up in every corner of her thoughts. Not knowing the full extent of the damage outside, she could only imagine.
If it did this much damage to us in here, how bad is it where the bomb went off? I don’t think I want to know…
Ten minutes could have passed, or an hour and a half. She couldn’t tell. In the darkness, time seemed to stand still. She was tired: tired of being here, tired of not knowing what was going to happen next. She held her son close to her, ignoring the pain in her arms, as she felt his steady breathing.
Sammy, I’m so sorry you have to go through this. I’m sorry, baby… I’m so – Wait, what was that?
Outside the family room, out in the hallway, there were footsteps. Heavy, clumsy footsteps. Were they getting closer? It did sound as if they were. They stopped right outside the family room, and they heard the faint *click* as the doorknob turned.
Everybody looked up, terrified. What was on the other side of that door? Would their last minutes alive be spent huddled together on the floor in a dark room?
No. Thank God, no. The host opened the door and peered in, asking if anybody wanted some water. It was as if the whole room was holding its breath until that moment, and it let out a collective sigh when they realized who it was.
“Go back upstairs to your family. We’re fine,” said somebody across the room. (But are we, really?) She couldn’t make out the face, but the voice was very familiar. It sounded like the man they had over for dinner at their house a few weeks ago. Or maybe she was completely wrong. Who knew?
The host came back into the room. Somehow, with the scare he gave them earlier, everybody was a little less on edge.
“My next door neighbor just came in; he said it’s all over.”
Just as they had somehow turned off, the lights seemed to magically turn back on. Funny how these things happen. People were shakily standing up and brushing dust and other things off of themselves.
She stood to get up, to try to pick out the tiny pieces of glass anchored in her arms (and back, it felt like). But as she stood up, her son, who had been sitting there quietly this whole time, looked up at her, held tightly onto her leg, and said, “Mommy…”
She sat back down and held him in her lap. The glass could wait; her son needed her.
