Traps and Specters (31 page)

“It's not what
I
want to do,” he said.

And he charged the rest of the way up the stairs, the rest of the group following.

CHAPTER 61

O
utside the maintenance room, Noah headed down the hall between the media center and the cafeteria, Solana quietly calling out twice for him to stop. In the dark distance, he saw two police officers charge across an intersecting hallway and head left, their voices and footfalls quickly fading.

“Where are they going?” Richie asked from just behind him.

As they reached the new hall seconds later, Noah pointed to the floor, where two faint sets of dusty animal footprints headed in the same direction the officers had gone. One had three stubby toes; the other had five round toe prints and a wide sole. Little Bighorn and Blizzard, no doubt. As Noah turned to follow them, he saw the two officers bang through the double doors of the gym. Through the walls came the muffled sounds of people yelling and footfalls thumping on bleachers. And Noah heard something else. Animals—animals growling and grunting.

Noah slowed down at the gym entrance and eased open one of the double doors.

“Noah!” Solana said. “We can't—”

Before she could finish, Noah slipped through the crack.

Near the stage at the far side of the gym were Blizzard and Little Bighorn. They were backed against each other, their rumps almost touching. As many as a dozen officers were posted along the two sets of bleachers, their guns aimed at the animals. They were hollering questions and commands at one another, spewing profanities that echoed in the open gym. A man with a faint mustache was struggling to steady his gun. A woman was repeatedly shouting, “Animal Control—Where's Animal Control?” into a walkie-talkie. A hulking man was holding his stare down the barrel of a rifle while saying, “I got the shot! I got the shot!” and asking if he should take it.

Blizzard, his back arched high, was snarling and swinging his long neck from side to side. Against the brown basketball court, his fur was startlingly white. Little Bighorn had his head dropped low and his huge horn raised like a weapon. His unblinking eyes kept shifting around the room.

The officers crept along the bleachers toward the stage. They walked behind their weapons. Blizzard and Little Bighorn were in their sights.

Solana and the other scouts had slipped into the gym and joined Noah. Beside the bleachers, they were mostly hidden from view. Ella said, “What do we do?”

Solana, her Descender gear back inside her clothes, said, “Nothing. The animals are doing what needs to be done.” She seized Ella's arm and pulled her back. “C'mon, we got to go. You want to spend the night in a cop station? Besides …” Her voice trailed off. Then she turned to her trapped animal friends and finished her thought. “We don't want to see this.”

Ella yanked her arm away. “We can't just leave them!”

“We don't have—”

A voice rang out over the noise: “Bobby, take the shot!”

“Roger,” said the brawny officer. He set his face against the rifle, his fat cheek bulging over the stock. Noah saw how his neck was nearly as thick as his head, rigid with muscles and corded with veins.

The other officers ceased all movement and conversation. Other than the low, rumbling growl of Blizzard and the occasional snort of Little Bighorn, the room had fallen deathly quiet.

A deafening crack erupted. As the brawny officer's body rocked, so did Blizzard's. The bear swung around, howling in pain. In his white fur, a bright red spot appeared. Just behind the shoulder of his right front leg, Blizzard had been shot.

The cop steadied his shaky rifle, his fat cheek again ballooning over the wooden handle.

Blizzard swung toward the officer. In any other circumstance, he would have charged up the bleachers and fought back. But not this time. This time he was doing what he'd come to do. To stand and protect his precious Secret Zoo.

A second blast sounded and Blizzard's body rocked again. As the gunshot echoed in the gym, Blizzard lowered himself to the ground, and a dull expression of acceptance found his face.

Little Bighorn turned to his fallen friend. The rhinoceros knew what was happening—he understood that the officer would eventually turn the rifle on him.

Noah heard whimpering and turned toward his friends. All the scouts were standing in shock, tears streaming down from their eyes. Ella had turned away, her hands pressed over her face.

Solana grabbed Megan's and Richie's elbows. “C'mon—we got to get out of here!”

The brawny cop readied himself for a third shot. As he did, Noah pulled away from his friends, dropped the velvet curtain from his arms, and charged across the floor, screaming,
“No!”

The cop fired but, having been startled, missed his target and instead struck the stage, splinters of wood showering into the air. As Noah ran across the court, all heads swung toward him. One officer yelled, and another screamed profanities. Before they could react, Noah reached Blizzard and dropped to his knees and began to frantically stroke the bear's head.

“You're going to be okay—everything's going to be okay.” But even as Noah said the words, he knew how ridiculous they sounded. Nothing was going to be okay.

Blizzard turned his eyes to Noah. Countless emotions stirred in their dark depths. Then they settled, leaving Blizzard with one state. Peace. Noah could see what it meant for Blizzard to have him near—the boy he had shared so many adventures with in the past year. If Blizzard was going to die, he was going to do so bathed in Noah's love.

“It's okay,” Noah said as his hand worked back and forth. “I'm here—I'm with you.”

Noah felt something under his armpits, and his world blurred as he was pulled into the air. Inches from his ear, a voice erupted:
“His legs! Get his legs!”
An officer jumped in front of him and swept up his feet. The two men broke into a sideways jog and carried him off, Blizzard watching.

Noah screamed in anger as the two officers rushed him away. In the bleachers, the man with the rifle raised his weapon again. Seeing this, Noah yelled to be let go. He twisted and squirmed and kicked. It was no use; the officers were too strong.

A safe distance away from Blizzard, the officers dropped Noah, who immediately turned back to the stage and saw something that took his breath. Ella, Megan, and Richie were standing where Noah had just been. They were holding hands, their bodies as far apart as their arms would allow. Tears were still streaming down their faces. Just past their ankles lay the big white mound of Blizzard. The officers weren't going to put another bullet in their friend—not without putting one through them first.

Blizzard lifted his chin off the court and sniffed the air toward the three friends, taking in whatever scents came with their courage and love.

The officers erupted in panic. Feet pounded down the bleachers and everyone converged on the scene, their guns held in front of them. Rubbery soles squeaked along the floor.

The scouts didn't move. They stood their ground in front of Blizzard, their hands clasped, their chests out. Noah saw that their tears had stopped. Their fear and sorrow had been wiped out by something else. Purpose.

Noah rolled onto his knees and then stood like his friends. Goose bumps rose on his arms. Blizzard and Little Bighorn had come to do something—but so had the scouts.

The stage curtain suddenly parted and out stepped two men. One had a rifle, but neither was dressed in the same blue uniform as the police officers.

As the cops dragged Noah's friends away, the man on the stage with the rifle fired a shot at Blizzard. The resulting
crack!
wasn't nearly as loud as the others, and as a bright green spot appeared in Blizzard's fur, Noah understood why. The rifle had fired a dart. The new weapon was a tranquilizer gun. The men on stage weren't police officers; they were officers from Animal Control.

A second dart was fired, then a third. Blizzard struggled to his feet, lumbered a few steps, and then his legs gave out. He lay on the basketball court, his front legs twisted beneath his body, his rear ones sprawled out. His eyelids sank half closed and his jaw dropped limply to one side as sedatives coursed through his body. He wasn't unconscious, but he was on his way.

Then the man fired several consecutive darts into Little Bighorn. The rhino stepped, staggered, and then collapsed to his stomach. His enormous head slumped, and his vacant stare fell to the floor.

One of the Animal Control officers hollered, “Everyone out! Lock the doors! We got a confined space here—let's use it! It's going to take a while for these animals to fall asleep!”

Officers quickly made for the double doors, holstering their guns along the way. Several officers seized the scouts' arms and pulled them along. As Noah went, he peered back to see Blizzard's side rising up and down with long, slow breaths. The bear turned his head, their eyes briefly met, then Noah was pulled out into the hall.

The officers released the scouts. Noah hugged his sister and saw that Ella was crying again. He looked for Solana and realized she was gone. She must have slipped out during the commotion, hopefully undetected. He peered back into the gym and saw that the curtain was gone—Solana must have taken it.

The final officer stepped into the hall. He unholstered his billy club and jammed it through the handles on the double doors, securing them. Noah was horrified at the thought of Blizzard being barricaded in the room. What would Animal Control do with him? What would happen to Little Bighorn?

The officers, more than a dozen, turned to the scouts. The cop that had fired at Blizzard reached out and grabbed a handful of Noah's shirt and one of Richie's. “Are you out of your minds? I could've killed you in there!”

Two officers intervened, pulling their coworker away from the kids.

“You were shooting him!” Megan said. “You were going to kill him!”

“He was following orders!” another officer spoke up. Noah turned to the voice and saw a man with tidy hair and a neatly trimmed mustache. His uniform seemed freshly pressed. To Noah, it looked like he was in charge. The man turned to the other officers and said, “Check the halls and the classrooms. Look for other animals or injured civilians.” The officers broke down the hall and split in different directions, their footfalls quickly fading.

The man turned to the scouts and said, “I'm Officer Jones.”

The scouts, huddled close, nodded.

“You kids mind telling me what the
heck
you're doing in here?” Officer Jones asked, his tone crisp and curt.

“We heard the noise,” Megan said before her friends could respond. “We were walking by”—she pinched the fabric on her pirate uniform and held it toward the officer—“trick-or-treating. When we saw the commotion at the school, all the cop cars and stuff, we came inside.” She paused before adding, “It was probably a dumb thing to do, but this is our neighborhood. We were just concerned.”

Officer Jones stared at Megan. Then he slowly looked at the other scouts, who were nodding in agreement. He lifted a single eyebrow and seemed to consider Megan's story.

“Is anyone hurt?”