“You mean like Mac or Cory?” he asked nervously.
“Gross!” she said, “I mean…they’re like 40! No, I mean you, Drake.”
Drake’s face turned red. “I uh…I…well, I guess we should be keeping an eye out. Don’t wanna get caught with our pants down, I mean… No, that came out wrong. What I meaned was...”
“It’s okay, Drake; it’s just us here,” she replied, smiling.
“Drake, you’re up in 15,” Mac chirped over the radio.
“Yes, sir,” he replied, relieved to have something to keep him from saying any other dumb stuff.
“I’ll get in position,” he told Whitney, “and I’ll cover you and the kids.”
The bell rang at 11:03, according to Mac’s watch. Over the next few minutes the children poured out the front door and immediately started to look for Whitney, in hopes of games to be played.
This day she would lead them quietly behind the barn and out of view of the house, hoping no adults would notice.
It surprised her the first time she saw them. They all seemed to be between the ages of three and thirteen.
She had asked the children before about any babies and was told there were none, but what about older teens? What about people my age? she thought. She hadn’t thought to ask until just now, and she hoped it was just a coincidence and not that they were participating in whatever happened before noon every day.
“All right, Drake,” instructed Mac, “the children are out of the way. You’re up.”
Drake snuck behind the back of the house, observing the window shades pulled closed, just as before. He heard a rhythmic chant, like at the only baseball game he had ever been to with his dad and brother a few years back, but instead of chanting “Rockies, Rockies,” this was colder somehow, lifeless and ominous.
Birds stopped singing in the trees, and his hair stood on his prickly arms. The house seemed to ache with trembling walls, and the doors he was about to chain shut clanged together one time after another. Clang! Clang! Clang!
Drake had seen and felt a lot of things over his long life, but never something like this.
Mac felt it too. He looked at Cory. “Something’s not right in there,” he said. Feeling his nightmare in the daylight, he envisioned a powerful force rolling over the land, crushing everything in its path.
“I feel it too,” Cory replied. “Even the birds won’t chirp… There’s evil in that house.”
“Ready in three,” Mac called over the radios.
“One, two...”
Drake lit the first of four firework bundles using his old Flippo, all-metal lighter. His father had carried it every day until his last. Black Cats, they were known as by every boy, and they made a racket at 660 firecrackers per box.
Pow! Pow! Pow! They ignited, one after the other, from the single wick. The back doors shook briefly as he dropped the first smoke bomb into the slightly opened window.
The curtains opened abruptly, and he stared into the eyes of a crazed man. Or was it a woman, he thought, donning the mask of a goat’s head with horns and bright red eyes?
The staring contest of sorts was short-lived, as smoke filled the main room of the house.
“Another round,” came the call from Mac over the radio. Only a few people had exited the front door. “Double it up!”
Drake lit two more firecracker bundles, followed by two smoke bombs.
Within a minute, most of the adults came out the front door, confused and disoriented. Many were dressed in clothing one might see at a dark Halloween party, and a variety of masks even Bourbon Street shop owners in New Orleans would find disturbing.
Most appeared to be unarmed. Mac lit the firecracker bundle from behind the boulder, and he and Cory stepped out from behind the large rock.
“Loveland Police! Put your hands behind your head and lay facedown on the ground!” was the call from the megaphone on the clifftop.
More than a few looked up to see rifles pointing towards them, and one after the other they complied with the repeated demands.
Drake ran to check on Whitney and the children, who couldn’t help but overhear the commotion.
She was singing them a song from a popular children’s movie called Minions, and for the moment they seemed unfazed by the events going on just outside their line of sight.
“Stay facedown,” shouted Cory. He and Mac weaved in between the members, rifles at the ready.
“Is this everyone?” asked a deputy over the loudspeaker.
“No,” shouted Cory. “I don’t see Ralph.”
“Ralph!” called Mac loudly when the fireworks had stopped and most of the smoke cleared. “Come on out!”
There was no response. He scanned the crowd, now all lying on the ground, one more time.
“Ralph,” he called again, “do you need help coming out?”
“Nope,” came the quick answer. “We’re not going anywhere. Now take your coward self and your worthless friends off of my property before I...”
He trailed off, and Mac, growing more irritated and angrier, waited a full 30 seconds before responding.
“Before you what?”
“Before I have you and your crackerjack outfit thrown off of my land,” Ralph replied.
Mac asked a few of the facedown women if there was anyone else left in the house.
“Only Ralph and his main security guy,” said one. Another woman agreed.
“No one else? No women or children?” he pressed.
“No, just those two,” they said.
“Drake,” he called over the radio. “Light it up!”
Doing as he was instructed, Drake dropped the first tear gas canister through the same partially opened window and quickly stepped back.
The sound reminded him of letting the air out of a car tire. The steady whish of air from the canister was sure to penetrate the entire house.
He waited for instructions from Mac, who would surely tell him all
