6:46 P.M.
The memorial was fourteen minutes away. Cole hoped that Wayne would come back with news that he’d found the folder at the camp, and the backpack and ammunition, and all of it together would be enough to exonerate Cole. Then he could get to the memorial, just in case something was to happen. But Wayne’s returning to the detachment seemed less and less likely with each passing second. It was stupid of him not to ask Jayne about the folder while she was here, but where was the opportunity? Excuse me, Lauren, I know you’re having a moment, but I just have to ask ghost-Jayne about something. Jayne was gone before Cole had time to talk to her alone. She was probably off to the memorial too. He could picture her skipping around with Lauren while her big sister got ready, and then walking with her there, pretending to hold her hand all the way to the ruins.
6:48 p.m.
Everybody would be there but Cole. Even a ghost would be there and not Cole. Well, he and Jerry, Cole supposed. Jerry was sleeping soundly. In the time since Cole had woken up after getting hit on the back of the head, Jerry had gotten up exactly once—to go to the bathroom. After he’d returned to his desk, he lowered his cap over his eyes, and was out cold. If Cole had any plausible way to get out of his jail cell, he bet that Jerry wouldn’t even stir. He could see the keys to the cell hanging off Jerry’s belt, but Jerry was napping all the way across the room. There’d be no tension-filled escape with Cole using some kind of hook to get the keys and Jerry dramatically stirring, none of Cole freeing himself while Jerry woke up, followed by a chase.
He couldn’t warn anybody either, about what he feared could happen to Eva. Of course, it was possible that nothing would happen, that the memorial would pass by without incident. The one thing Cole knew was that if something did happen and Choch were there—and Cole was sure that he would be—that he wouldn’t lift a finger. Maybe he couldn’t. Maybe Choch had his own rules. But it was still maddening.
What were the truths in what Choch told Cole before? Had there been truths, really? Maybe. After all, he had thrown a branch about forever long, Cole estimated. He bet that the branch was still flying through the air.
“Oh, dear Creator above, please do shut off this child’s mind for one second!” Choch was standing beside him.
“I’m figuring things out!” Cole said.
“Everybody, and I mean everybody, wants you to try and bend the gosh-darn bars, Coley-Boley. I wasn’t giving you some unsolvable riddle, was I? I literally mimed bar bending. Just get on with it already.”
And like that, Choch was gone.
Was that really possible? Throwing a branch was one thing, but bending metal bars seemed something else entirely. Cole turned his attention away from the clock (it was now 6:52 p.m.), and focused on the bars. He took a deep breath, glanced over to a might-as-well-be-dead Jerry, then gripped his hands around the bars, one for each hand. He began to pull with all his strength. He grunted loudly. He could feel the muscles tear in his arms and chest. He could feel beads of sweat start to drip down his forehead. He could feel himself start to faint from the exertion. He could feel all of this, but he could not feel the bars move. Not by a fraction. He took his hands away from the metal and turned away from the bars, disgusted.
“Liar!” Cole shouted to an absent Choch.
He took another deep breath and returned to the bars like a fighter after round one. He gripped the metal again, and this time he moved to the side, trying to gain leverage by pushing on the bars with his feet. Any advantage he could get. He pulled at them even harder. He let out a guttural scream. This time Jerry did stir, but didn’t wake. “Come on!” Cole called out, as though the bars would comply. He pulled harder, harder, and then released the bars in defeat. The sudden removal of force threw him against the concrete wall, and he slid to the ground, panting and heaving, drenched with sweat.
“You’re letting her die!” he shouted to himself, to Choch, to anybody that would listen.
Cole was there again, running through the field towards the burning school, screaming the names of his friends, and hearing their screams in return. He was inside the school, looking over the bodies. They’d been trying to make it out alive. Bodies near the doors. Bodies trapped under debris. A body on the stack of blue mats, someone trying to get away from the flames. He hadn’t run fast enough. And then he was in front of Ashley, watching his body jerk to the right, watching his blood splash across the trailer. He was kneeling beside Ashley’s body. He was holding Alex’s hand as they walked through the night. She was kissing him on the cheek. He was sitting with Maggie on a rock. He was running to the sound of a gunshot. He was standing over her body—
No. Not again. Cole stood up. He walked over to the bars and wrapped his fingers around them. He pictured each of the people he couldn’t save. He saw their faces and pushed them deep down inside his chest, and then he pulled. His body shook. His muscles burned as though they were on fire, as though he were there, lifeless, on the gym floor with his friends, with his mother. He pulled. He was a seven-year-old boy, lifting a wall. Doing the impossible. He pulled, and he felt the thick, round metal bars begin to give. He pulled harder, and the bars began to spread apart from each other, further and further. He let out one last scream, and everything came out of him, everything he had been holding in for ten years, all the tears, all the pain, all the faces of the kids that had passed away. The bars burst apart like pieces of tin foil. He let go. Cole stood there, looking in disbelief at the large space he’d made between the prison bars. He hesitated for only a moment, then stepped outside of the cell. He walked up to the front door and checked the clock.
He would make it. Before leaving, he looked across the room to where Jerry was snoring loudly.
“Really?”