Teresa's Christmas Finale Ch. 01

"That's right, Bettina." said Priya, who was at the KSTD News Desk, on a shared feed with KXTC. "Our signals were taken over nearly two hours ago by what appeared to be former Town & County Councilman Thomas P. Cook, who was recently indicted and suspended from the Council based upon evidence provided by Commander Troy. And now it looks like Cook has struck back in the most devastating way possible, kidnapping a little girl and making her sit there and wait to die." Priya was in tears as she said all this, by the way.

"The Police have the area surrounded." said Bettina. "We do know that Commander Troy is on the scene and is in charge, giving the evacuation orders to ensure other innocent civilians are removed from the danger area, and..."

Suddenly, the static started up again. Then the fuzzy picture of Thomas P. Cook appeared again.

"At four o'clock," the voice said, "these signals will be taken over one last time. You will witness the death of Carole Troy, and you will get to see Commander Donald Troy as he watches his daughter die." The video showed me from a distance, looking at the building with binoculars."

"Obviously one of the drones." said Cindy.

"If I knew which one, I'd kill its signal." said Myron.

"Don't." I said. "No time to be sending out active signals. Captain Ross, put out the word to go to radio silence." Cindy did so. Chatter on the radio went quiet. KXTC came back up, with Bettina talking, not realizing she'd been cut off again.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

"What's the status?" Teresa Croyle asked as she came up to Lt. Hewitt.

"Nothing, yet." said Hewitt. "Cook transmitted that it would go down at 4:00pm. We've been watching the feeds, and we'd go in, but we can't get to the girl and get her out in time."

"No, you can't." said Teresa. "Just stand by until the Commander orders you to move."

A minute later, Hewitt looked around. Teresa wasn't there. Then he caught a flash of black at the edge of the building, going for the door on the north side... the door Commander Troy had used to rescue three children from Ned.

Shit! he thought to himself. What is she up to?

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

3:58pm. I was still looking through the binoculars. Cindy had gotten out of her SUV and was next to me, also watching with binoculars. We saw it together.

The door on the far side of the building to us opened, and a flash of black appeared as Teresa Croyle came into view. She was running as fast as she could towards the ring of pallets. I noticed a white cloth around her waist... a thousand-stitch belt, which I knew Todd was going to give her for Christmas.

"What the heck?" Cindy gasped. I just kept watching. Teresa was also carrying something in her hand... a black crowbar. NOW she's deciding to carry one, I thought to myself. Then Teresa hit the pallet, running up the side of it. She propelled herself to the top then over it in a flip. Mary Lou Retton could not have stuck the landing any better.

"What is she doing?" Cindy asked, her voice connoting pure disbelief.

"Rescuing Carole." I said, still knowing the odds were one in a billion... but clinging to that 'one'. I watched as Teresa took metal cutters from her pocket and cut Carole's bonds apart, freeing her little arms. Teresa put the metalcutters back in her pocket, then said something to Carole, who nodded.

Teresa then took the black crowbar and gave a mighty heave, tearing out the wires between the pallets on the west side, closest to the door she'd entered. Then Teresa dropped the crowbar, picked up Carole, and tore out of there as fast as she possibly could. 
"Countdown activated!" yelled Myron. "Ten seconds!"

"Oh my God, she'll never make it!" Cindy cried out, seeing Teresa not running to a door on either side, but dead west.

"She's going for----- awk!" I gasped, feeling myself being tackled. Rudistan practically horse-collared me, taking me to the ground and putting his body weight on me...

KA-WHUMMMMPPPPPP...

VOL-THOOM!!!!!!!!

I felt the blast more than hearing it. The shock wave went right though me, rattling the very core of my being. Something else rattled my very soul... pure agonizing fear.

My SUV had been parked with the rear facing the building. It got pushed 20 feet. Cindy's had been parked sideways; it was tumbled over and badly damaged. Other Police cruisers were also hurled like toys, and Officers that had not taken cover were knocked down hard. Partially behind a concrete abutment, Cindy, Micah, and I were not hurt... physically, anyway.

I looked up as the massive smoke cloud began lifting, revealing that virtually nothing was left of the Ward Harvester warehouse. Beams of steel were rising from the ground towards the smoky, open sky. There were no walls to the building left standing. The office area was collapsed.

I threw Rudistan off me and got up and began running. Cindy was not fast enough to catch me, nor was Rudistan, but he did manage to stop her.

"Micah, let me go!" Cindy screamed. "I've got to stop him!"

"No ma'am." Rudistan said, disobeying her orders. "It's his daughter, ma'am." Cindy stopped and watched as Don ran towards the ruins of the building, and she burst into tears.

Part 6 - Hopeless

The threats were existential. Debris was falling out of the sky. Sharp objects, red-hot objects. Any one of them could penetrate me like a bullet and cut open an artery, and I would be done. I ran on, heedless. I wasn't hearing anything, but I was screaming all the way down.

I saw twisted plastic and metal objects on the ground amongst all the other sheet metal and other debris. The Press drones had been blown out of the sky.

I had to be careful; one wrong step and I could be cut open by a sharp piece of debris, or fall into a hole. I didn't care; I drove on across the parking lot. I made it to the building, and I ran up to the concrete docks and up the stairs. The sounds were eerie... quiet, but winds were blowing in cross-currents, and it felt surreal. But I was heedless as I looked for any sign of my daughter and Teresa.

The place where the eight pallets had been were a vaporized spot. There was no chair, no nothing. The black crowbar Teresa had dropped was not there. Something caused me to look to the left, towards the left end. There was half a beam standing from the ground, twisted. The crowbar was embedded in the steel. The power to do that would have been stunning... and that full power would've hit Teresa and Carole as they ran...

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

"Get a drone up! Get a drone up!" shouted a technician at KSTD.

"What's going on over there?" yelled Dan Walther. "Are any of our reporters on air? On line?"

"Working on it, sir." said someone.

John Hardwood came in, his face eerie, his eyes glowing with excitement. "Do we have visual of Troy?" he asked.

"All the drones were blown out of the sky." said Walther, peering at Hardwood, whose actions were just a bit too weird. "The explosives went off before our feeds were taken over again."

"Damn." said Hardwood. Priya was crying, and she turned to look at Hardwood.

"KXTC has a drone up." said someone. "They're sending us their feed."

"On screen." said Walther. What came on was mostly smoke-obscured, but a side drone then sent an image from the east.

"Oh my God." said Priya. They could all see that there was nothing left of the Ward Harvester warehouse, and other buildings in the area were badly damaged. It looked like a nuclear weapon had gone off.

"Find Troy." Hardwood kept whispering. "Find Troy!"

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

I looked around, seeing debris on the concrete floor near where the offices had been; some of the joints had held, and an undertow current of air in the explosion and made a pile of debris on the west side. I staggered over, watching my step in the mess, and then I saw it. I bent down and picked up a piece of white cloth with the red stitches in it. Smoke mixed with the tears in my eyes to burn them as I recognized it.

It was a thousand-stitch belt.

To be continued?