Solitude Creek

Southern explained to Dance and O’Neil, ‘We’ve got a network of underground tunnels — where our security office is. We take sick guests out that way, pickpockets, people’re drunk. It’s the command post too. He’s in there. He’s going to try to get out through the tunnels. There’s an exit to a parking lot on the far edge of the property … Oh, Jesus … Look!’

A wave of a thousand, two thousand people was now charging the exit.

‘Get back, it’s all right!’ the security head yelled to them. Pointless, as before.

Parents had abandoned strollers and were carrying their screaming children. The people waiting at the turnstiles turned back and saw the tide approaching.

The screams rose and those behind the patrons in front began scrabbling over the others to get to the turnstiles. Some began running through the broken gate, climbing over the unsub’s Chevy. One man fell on his back and lay still.

Dance, O’Neil and Southern ran forward, holding their palms up to stanch the flow of human bodies, shouting that there was no attack.

But the crowd had no rational mind. Safety, escape — those were the only things that mattered.

A creature … not human …

‘They’re going to be crushed,’ Dance said.

O’Neil: ‘The gate. We have to get it open. Now!’

He, Ralston and a half-dozen park workers ran to the unsub’s car and, by using pure muscle, pulled it back — five feet, ten, twenty. They then grabbed the gate and swung it open. It screeched on the concrete.

O’Neil leaped aside as the tide, twenty bodies wide, swarmed through the open space. Others continued to push through or leap over the turnstiles.

A mother, holding a young child of about four, staggered through the gate, then turned toward an empty part of the parking lot and stumbled in that direction. Dance noticed that her arm was badly broken. She got about ten steps toward a bench, then eased her daughter to the asphalt and collapsed. Dance ran to help.

She had just gotten to the woman when there was a shattering of glass and dozens of people leaped onto the sidewalk. They’d broken a large window of one of the gift shops and were fleeing out of the park through the gap. This herd soon swelled to several hundred.

They were bearing down on Dance, the woman and her child. Even though they were out of the park, panic had seized them and they were sprinting madly.

‘Get up!’ Dance cried to the groggy mother, scooping up the child by the waist. The crowd was forty feet away, thirty.

The woman suddenly gripped Dance’s collar. Unbalanced by her awkward crouch, the agent fell backward. She landed hard, still clasping the child. Stunned, she looked up to see a wall of a hundred patrons stampeding directly for them. To judge from their feral eyes, not a single one even saw them, let alone had any intention of turning aside.

CHAPTER 46

As a matter of pride, Antioch March would have preferred to start the panic without firing any shots.

What a lovely idea. Words alone causing so much destruction and chaos. In fact, he would have preferred to start the madness by merely asking questions, not using fake texts from a fake wife.

‘Who do you think those guards are looking for?’

‘Have you heard anything in the news about any terrorist threats here?’

Subtlety, finesse. Let the victims use their own imagination.

Stampedes, he’d learned, can begin with nothing more than a hint, as insubstantial as a moth’s wing, that you won’t get what you desire. Or that what you fear will destroy you. Thanks, Dad … Desire and fear were the keys to success in sales, his father had told him.

March was presently hiding in the trunk of a Nissan Altima, which was still parked in one of the garages at Global Adventure World. He was quite hot in the ski mask and cloth gloves.

Getting out of the park itself had been relatively easy, thanks to the massive herd of gazelle fleeing the terrorist lion. He’d even caught a fast glimpse of his beloved Kathryn, staring with wide eyes at the surging crowd, not seeing him. But the rest of his getaway — escaping from the area — was more of a problem. As the crowd surged out, March had diverted into the garage, where he began looking for a certain type of car. Finally he found what he sought: a rental (with a big trunk) that had a hotel valet ticket, good for three more days, on the dash. That meant the family had already checked in and wasn’t leaving Orange County for a while; therefore, no luggage in the trunk in the immediate future. Sure, maybe Billy or Suzy had bought some souvenirs but, if so, they’d probably lost them in the crush.

He’d jimmied the door, popped the trunk — found it empty, good. Then climbed in, along with the shopping bag containing his gym bag and gun, and closed it. True, he might have to shoot his way out of this, if the driver and family did decide to toss something back here. But he didn’t have a lot of options.

Would there be roadblocks, would they open the trunk?

Again, no choice.