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It was over almost before it began. Mic and Slade were walking, hand-in-hand under a large purple and gold umbrella. They looked like any couple out to enjoy an art show on a rainy Saturday. The sun had popped through the clouds. It was a few minutes past one in the afternoon. Mic had stopped at an artist tent to admire some pottery when they heard the first sounds of a disturbance. A loud moan rose from the crowd. Slade grabbed her arm and said, "Come on, something’s happening," at the same moment their phones blew up with texts.
They ran quickly through the drizzle and mud, dodging people, baby carriages, tents and vendors until they saw the first bodies lying just outside the beer tent. They quickly moved into the tent. It was packed, wall-to-wall with people escaping the rain and waiting in line for beer. Mic looked to the right as another gasp escaped from the crowd. A middle-aged man fell to the ground. An older gentleman followed. A young woman looked on in horror. A few seconds later more people fell into each other. The crowd was so dense there was no space to hit the ground. It was impossible to tell how many people were down.
Michaela stood paralyzed as people staggered, lost their balance, and fell into the crowd. There were at least ten or twelve bodies lying in the mud near one side of the tent. Red solo cups littered the ground as people lost control and fell. Beer saturated the ground and the air smelled of brew and hops. People screamed and cried. Shrieks of terror pierced Mic’s ears and her heart until she wished she were deaf.
On the far side of the tent, no one had noticed or heard the cries from the crowd. Two beer trucks on the end served beer as quickly as possible. Suddenly, a big guy, probably over 200 pounds, fell over and his head rested on the serving counter of the beer truck. Moans of fear and madness erupted from the crowd. Another man staggered and fell. A woman followed him. A young child cried for her parents, both lay still on the ground. The child knelt next to them and tried to wake them up but couldn’t. Mic quickly moved towards the child, pushing and elbowing her way through the crowd. She took the child by her hand and moved her to a safe area.
"Oh, my God, Slade. What kind of poison is this?" she cried as she looked around at the dead and dying. "It's killing them instantly."
Slade nodded. "It's the beer. It has to be the kegs. And possibly the air. They’ve been poisoned."
Slade edged along the side of the tent towards one of the huge trucks and motioned for the brewmaster to stop serving beer. "Your beer is bad, the beer is poisoned," he yelled and gestured frantically with his hands. "Stop serving. NOW."
One bartender gave Slade a dirty look and shook his fist while two others stared at him incoherently. Another motioned for clarification. It was impossible to hear. The screams and moans deafened any possibility of communication.
"Stop serving beer," Slade hollered and accepted a megaphone from a Richmond police officer. A second later, the loudspeaker came on and ordered the beer trucks to stop serving. By this time, the tent was littered with bodies. Anarchy and chaos prevailed. The survivors’ moans and screams for help and cries from children added to the horror of the afternoon. At the far end of the tent, people continued to laugh, joke, and drink beer.
Uniformed police attempted to escort anyone who could walk outside. Police officers stripped off the side of the tent. Paramedics fought to get into the tent as people spilled to the outside as rescue vehicles and first responders attempted to enter.
Michaela watched from the periphery of the crowd and held the child against her. The fear was palpable. Bodies covered the muddy ground. She was shocked by the awfulness and terror of the scene. The beer tent had become a killing field and the screams of fear were horrific. Bedlam prevailed.
Slade was stunned. He waved frantically to Mic. He was trapped by the crowd and couldn’t walk a foot in any direction, essentially a prisoner in his own body. The motion of the crowd carried him along. He was useless. Unable to help.
Finally, the tent was open on all sides. The hysterical crowd moved slowly, in an undulating fashion, outside of the tent into the dim spring afternoon. Pandemonium broke and the crowd ran as fast as they could. They trampled each other in the process. Mic watched helplessly as an older couple fell to the ground and were trampled to death by fleeing men, women, and children. The crowd was panic-stricken, their movements tentative and unsure. The screams and shrieks were loud, staccato sounds that deafened. Men, women and children broke ranks and ran like rabbits. Some scurried like rats back into the tent and looked for friends and family members. Added to the noise and turmoil was the sound of sirens and frightened, pathetic screams of children and the panicked sobs of survivors. The ground was littered with hundreds and hundreds of beer cups and bodies. The air smelled of fear, beer, and vomit and death. Michaela knew she was in hell.
For an instant, Mic wondered if tripping or falling to the wet earth could poison you. She clung to the child. She saw another toddler scream in the stroller as he watched his mother sob and hold his father’s head.
Slade grabbed the woman to keep her from being trampled as Michaela pulled the stroller to a safe place. She still held on to the child she’d rescued from the beer tent earlier. The crowd was uneasy and angry. Hysteria and bedlam broke out. Several groups of people were fighting. It was ugly and moments away from a full-blown riot. Slade had called the Riot Tactical Unit.
Mic watched as the police Riot Tactical Unit approached. They were good and knew their stuff. The unit was mobile and adaptable to changes in any crowd situation. If the threat appeared behind or to one side of the unit, the line faced that direction and became the front of the unit. Each line of officers covered each other when the team moved or changed positions. When the unit was under direct attack, the team no longer moved together. Instead, one line moved while the other unit provided firepower or formed a physical screen with riot shields.
Mic felt easier as she watched the riot team take their formation. She tugged at Slade’s wrist and said, “Look, they’re gonna deploy a square formation with the command team in the center.”
Slade nodded, “Yeah, it’s bad and they’re obviously predicting it’ll get worse. They’re not taking chances, and besides, we gotta get the rescue crews in there to see if we have survivors.”
Mic shook her head and looked around. “Look, Slade, there are no survivors. No one is moving. They’re all dead,” she said, her voice final.
Slade watched the crowd as Mic watched the riot squad. She noticed a thin, skeletal man who sat on a bench and smiled into the crowd. He was the only person in sight who wasn’t running, sobbing or screaming. She recognized him from the police artist’s sketch. It was the man with the caved-in head from Busy Burger. The crazy guy who’d poisoned the school children.
She left the little girl in charge of the baby carriage and ran to Slade. She whispered in his ear and pointed her finger. “There he is. There’s one of your poisoners. Sitting there on the bench, grinning like a Cheshire cat.”
Slade followed her finger and barked into his phone. In a matter of moments the man was surrounded by six Richmond uniformed cops, guns drawn, as he sat on the bench chewing popcorn, watching the “show” as he described the death, murder, and mayhem that surrounded him.
He laughed an evil laugh and waved the police away as he held a vial of poison in his right hand. “Don’t come any closer. If you do, I guarantee all of you will be dead in fifteen seconds,” he promised as he leered at them.
Slade moved closer to the man. “Put the vial down,” he said in a steady voice as he took a step closer. “If you don’t put it down, I’ll kill you,” he threatened.
The man laughed a long, hollow maniacal laugh. “You think I’m worried about that? I just want to watch the show a few minutes longer. Then you can take me in, shoot me, or string me up on a tree. I don’t care.”
Slade was incensed by the man’s laissez faire attitude and lack of respect for the dead and dying. “We’ve got five bullets aimed at your brain. Put the vial on the ground next to the bench.”
The guy shrugged his shoulders, smiled and said, “It ain’t gonna happen.” He reached into his shirt pocket and popped something into his mouth. He gave Slade a maniacal smile and leered at the uniformed officers. A few second later, he slumped over onto the bench.
“What’s goin’ on? Did that SOB poison himself or something? Is he dead or is it a trap to throw the poison on us?” one of the uniformed officers asked excitedly.
Slade hesitated a second and looked for signs of chest movement. There was none. He moved next to Boris’s body and said, “Yeah, he’s dead. I guess he took his own poison.” He turned his head in disgust and looked at his men. “What a chickenshit.” He pulled a glove and evidence bag from his pocket and picked up the vial.
“Don’t touch the body, Slade,” one of his men warned. “For all we know the guy’s radioactive. We need HAZMAT and biocontainment people in here.”
“They’re already here. In the beer tent,” an officer yelled.
Slade grimaced and said, “Yeah, send them down here. This bastard looks a little yellow and may be glowing a bit.” He looked over at the beer tent and saw the riot unit had made great gains in crowd control in just a few minutes. The crowd was quieter as hundreds of medical personnel gathered around to care for them.
Mic checked her watch. It was seventeen minutes after one. The massacre had lasted only seventeen minutes. She was shocked.
###
SNAKE WATCHED THE ENTIRE scene from a small grove of trees about fifty yards away. He turned to leave, to vanish in the chaos. He wondered how in the hell he was gonna get paid. Boris was dead and he had no idea who he’d been working for. Boris’s death hadn’t been part of the plan, at least not a part he’d been included in. He hoped his handlers would manage to find him and give him his money. He moved quietly near the lake, taking cover wherever he could. He wanted to cross to the other side, but someone grabbed him from behind and stuffed a rag over his face. What the hell... were the only words Snake uttered before his world went dark. He didn’t see his captors and didn’t know they communicated using hand signals. The major turned to one of his men and said, “Good catch, man. We’ll turn the heat up on this asshole until we know everything he knows.”
Mic checked her watch. It was seventeen minutes after one. The massacre had lasted only seventeen minutes. She was shocked.