The words barely came out; his throat was full of blood from his mashed nose. Rusty hawked it back, turned his head, spat a half-clotted loogie into the grass, and tried again. 'Hold it to the wound, Dad. Apply pressure. Hand to the back of his neck and squeeze!
Dazed but willing, Alden Dinsmore did as he was told. The makeshift pad immediately turned red, but the man seemed calmer nonetheless. Having something to do helped. It usually did
Rusty flung the remaining piece of shirt at Lester. 'More!' he said, and Lester began ripping the shirt into smaller pieces. Rusty lifted Dinsmore's hand and removed the first pad, which was now soaked and useless. Shelley Dinsmore shrieked when she saw the empty socket. 'Oh, my boy! My boy!'
Peter Randolph arrived at a jog, huffing and puffing. Still, he was far ahead of Big Jim, who - mindful of his substandard ticker - was plodding down the slope of the field on grass the rest of the crowd had trampled into a broad path. He was thinking of what a clustermug this had turned out to be. Town gatherings would have to be by permit only in the future. And if he had anything to do with it (he would; he always did), permits would be hard to come by.
'Move these people back further!' Randolph snarled at Officer Morrison. And, as Henry turned to do so: 'Move it back, folks! Give em some air!'
Morrison bawled:' Officers, form a line! Push em back! Anyone who resists, put em in cuffs!'
The crowd began a slow reverse shuffle. Barbie lingered. 'Mr Everett... Rusty... do you need any help? Are you okay?'
'Fine,' Rusty said, and his face told Barbie everything he needed to know: the PA was all right, just a bloody nose. The kid wasn't and never would be again, even if he lived. Rusty applied a fresh pad to the kid's bleeding eyesocket and put the father's hand over it again. 'Nape of the neck,' he said. 'Press hard. Hard!
Barbie started to step back, but then the kid spoke.
3
'It's Halloween. You can't... we can't..,'
Faisty froze in the act of folding another piece of shirt into a compression pad. Suddenly he was back in his daughters' bedroom, listening to Janelle scream, It's the Great Pumpkin's fault!
He looked up at Linda. She had heard, too. Her eyes were big, the color fleeing her previously flushed cheeks.
'Linda!' Rusty snapped at her. 'Get on your walkie! Call the hospital! Tell Twitch to get the ambulance - '
"The fire!' Rory Dinsmore screamed in a high, trembling voice. Lester was staring at him as Moses might have stared at the burning bush. 'The fire! The bus is in the fire! Everyone's screaming! Watch out for Halloween!'
The crowd was silent now, listening to the child rant. Even Jim Rennie heard as he reached the back of the mob and began to elbow his way through.
'Linda!' Rusty shouted. 'Get on your walkie! We need the ambulance!'
She started visibly, as if someone had just clapped his hands in front of her face. She pulled the walkie-talkie off her belt.
Rory tumbled forward into the flattened grass and began to seize.
'What's happening?'That was the father.
'Oh dear-to-Jesus, he's dying!' That was the mother.
P^usty turned the trembling, bucking child over (trying not to think of Jannie as he did it, but that, of course, was impossible) and tilted his chin up to create an airway.
'Come on, Dad,' he told Alden. 'Don't quit on me now. Squeeze the neck. Compression on the wound. Let's stop the bleeding.'
Compression might drive the fragment that had taken the kid's eye deeper in, but Rusty would worry about that later. If, that was, the kid didn't die right out here on the grass.
From nearby - but oh so far - one of the soldiers finally spoke up. Barely out of his teens, he looked terrified and sorry. 'We tried to stop him. Boy didn't listen. There wasn't nothing we could do.'
Pete Freeman, his Nikon dangling by his knee on its strap, favored this young warrior with a smile of singular bitterness. 'I think we know that. If we didn't before, we sure do now.'
4
Before Barbie could melt into the crowd, Mel Searles grabbed him by the arm.
'Take your hand off me,' Barbie said mildly.
Searles showed his teeth in his version of a grin. 'In your dreams, Fucko.' Then he raised his voice. 'Chief. Hey, Chief!'
Peter Randolph turned toward him impatiently, frowning.
'This guy interfered with me while I was trying to secure the scene. Can I arrest him?'
Randolph opened his mouth, possibly to say Don't waste my time. Then he looked around. Jim Rennie had finally joined the little group watching Everett work on the boy. Rennie gave Barbie the flat stare of a reptile on a rock, then looked back at Randolph and nodded slightly.
Mel saw it. His grin widened. 'Jackie? Officer Wettmgton, I mean? Can I borrow a pair of your cuffs?'
Junior and the rest of his crew were also grinning. This was better than watching some bleeding kid, and a lot better than policing a bunch of holy rollers and dumbbells with signs. 'Payback's a bitch, Baaaar-bie,' Junior said.
Jackie looked dubious. 'Pete - Chief, I mean - I think the guy was only trying to h - '
'Cuff him up,' Randolph said. 'We'll sort out what he was or wasn't trying to do later. In the meantime, I want this mess shut down.' He raised his voice. 'It's over, folks! You've had your fun, and see what it's come to! Now go home!'
Jackie was removing a set of plasticuffs from her belt (she had no intention of handing them to Mel Searles, would put them on herself) when Julia Shumway spoke up. She was standing just behind Randolph and Big Jim (in fact, Big Jim had elbowed her aside on his way to where the action was).
'I wouldn't do that, Chief Randolph, unless you want the PD embarrassed on the front page of the Democrat.' She was smiling her Mona Lisa smile. 'With you so new to the job and all.'
'What are you talking about?' Randolph asked. His frown was deeper now, turning his face into a series of unlovely crevices.