CHAPTER 75 CODY HILL

75

Cody Hill

WITH ALL THE NAILS and ball bearings, the bomb was much heavier than Cody expected, and he was glad when he finally got it under the bleachers at the middle school. He spied the oversize Hollows Bend Bearcat mascot costume sticking out of its storage box. The bomb would fit nicely in the large head.

What the hell was a bearcat, anyway? Damn thing looked like a giant discard from the wrong side of Sesame Street. The inside was even worse: wire mesh held together by glue, tape, and the sweat of generations of losers tasked with wearing it. It stunk like an old gym sock dipped in raw eggs and left in the sun.

Cody tucked the bomb inside, stuffed the costume back into its giant plastic storage coffin, and got out of the middle school without running into a single person. He set the timer for 9:00 p.m. Cell phones weren't working right, so he'd used an old set of Motorola two-way radios for the backup remote trigger. When he was safely across the street, he checked the signal and was happy to see four out of five bars. The signal didn't drop completely until he was on the far end of Main Street watching the fire. He'd gotten lost in that—watching the hungry flames chewing away at the old buildings. A few were unrecognizable; others appeared untouched. Like the flames were a kid who didn't want to eat something on his plate and pushed it aside.

Nobody was out on Main Street, either.

No cars.

No people.

Nothing.

He'd gone to the diner that morning to grab a bagel, scope things out, and the street had been bustling, packed with yahoos coming and going, but now, nothing. Nobody watching the fire, nobody attempting to put it out.

Like he was the last person on Earth, like in that old Isaac Asimov story. Or was it Ray Bradbury?

He worked his way down the street, hanging flyers anyway. He'd printed five hundred of them and wasn't about to let them go to waste. Someone would come along; word would spread. Those cowards would need to crawl out of their houses at some point, and they'd want answers. Where better to find those answers than an emergency town meeting? COME YE, COME

ALL!

Small towns loved to come together.

Cody held a flyer against the tree near the entrance to Lou's Laundry and stapled it in place, then stepped back to admire his handiwork. Earlier, he'd considered wearing the bomb vest as he hung the flyers, sort of a trial run, but with the heat of the fire at his back, he was glad he didn't. Aside from the handful of YouTube videos he'd watched, he didn't know much about C-4. He was pretty sure heat couldn't set it off, but today wasn't the day to confirm that particular theory.

He was debating whether to hit Thornily Street or head down Lincoln when he spotted the car at the back end of the parking lot behind the laundry.

A Ford Fusion. Puke-green stained with rust. The back door was open, and what was left of the window glistened on the asphalt, nothing but a pile of safety glass.

Cody didn't hear the buzzing until he got close.

At first, it looked like something was moving inside, a blob of black darker than the shadows, throbbing and inching back and forth on the seat, wall, and remaining windows. As Cody drew closer, he realized this wasn't a single thing but a million little things—black flies, crawling over the interior. He'd never seen so many in one place before, like a black beehive. He was standing at the open door before he realized there was a person beneath them on the floor, barely visible under the living blanket.

"Don't touch that, kid. He's dead."

"No shit," Cody replied.

The voice had come from behind him, but Cody didn't turn. He couldn't take his eyes off the beautiful mess before him. The buzz of the flies was like music. They were feasting on the body, life born of death. Cody wanted to roll in it, be part of it.

A heavy hand landed on Cody's shoulder and gently squeezed. "You shouldn't be out here. It's not safe."

This time, Cody did turn. Angry. Who the hell thought it was okay to interrupt him?

The man was older, fifties, or sixties, or seventies, Cody had no clue. They all looked the same when they went gray. He'd seen him around town before, always wearing that same ratty Boston Red Sox cap and flannel shirt, like the man had homed in on his signature style years back and committed for his remaining days above the dirt. He wasn't alone. Cody hadn't heard them pull up, but there was a Chevy pickup parked at the entrance to the lot with two other men in the front seat and four or five others in the back of the truck. The angle made it hard to see. A couple of them had guns.

The old man pushed the ball cap farther back on his head and eyed the flyers in Cody's hand. "What you got there?"

Cody handed him one.

He studied the text and was either slow or putting some serious thought into the eight words on the page, because nearly half a minute ticked by before he looked back at Cody and spoke again. "This your idea, or you hanging them for someone else?"

"Sheriff Ellie asked me to do it," Cody lied. "Gave me twenty bucks and said she'll give me a free pass on my first parking ticket when I learn to drive."

"Did she now." The man considered this. "When'd you see her?"

"This morning, right after the shit hit the fan."

One of the men jumped off the back of the truck and wandered over. He had a 9mm strapped to his hip, right out in plain sight. The old guy held the flyer out to him. "Get a load of this, Rodney. Kid said the sheriff asked him to hang them up."

The man with the 9mm read the text and nodded slowly. "Half the town will come out for something like this. All in one place. We could vet them at the door, only let out the ones who aren't sick, keep the others back …"

"I'm thinking the same thing," the old man replied before turning back to Cody. "We've got numbers. Want us to give you a hand getting those out?"

Cody glanced at his watch. It was coming up on seven. He'd wanted to do this himself, but with only two hours left, he'd be lucky if he covered a quarter of the town. With a little help from Old Guy and Friends, he might just get the whole stack of flyers out. He might have time to print more. He tried not to sound too excited when he said, "I got my twenty bucks. You want to help, I'm not gonna say no." He handed the man the bulk of the remaining flyers.

The man with the 9mm, the one he'd called Rodney, walked the stack of flyers back to the truck and told the others. The old man ruffled Cody's hair. "My name's Stu Peterson. What's yours?"

"Dylan Klebold," Cody lied again.

Klebold had been on Cody's mind a lot lately. Back in 1999, he and another senior named Eric Harris shot up some school out in Columbine, Colorado. Cody had studied everything they did right. More importantly, he'd also studied everything they did wrong . He was no idiot. No reason to repeat mistakes. Perfection was all about weeding out the errors.