Eleven

He pulls out a folded wad of paper from his pants pocket and opens it. The late-afternoon sun glows orange through nearby branches as he looks at his notes.

“First of all, this sucks,” he says. “Making out was way more fun.”

“Making out is my favorite,” I say glumly.

“Right?” He folds the papers with one hand and puts his other to his forehead, rubbing his temples. “Okay, so here’s how it goes.”

I link my arm in his and scoot my butt closer.

“We’re in a classroom. You asked me how I knew before, and I couldn’t tell you back then, but now I know. In a couple of the frames, as my view—or whatever—pans the room, there’s a whiteboard on the wall and a few tables and overturned chairs.”

“I always thought of my view as the camera angle,” I say. “You see what the camera sees, right? And the angle changes a few times? Mine did, anyway.”

He nods. “Yeah, it does. That’s totally how it looks.” He rests his hand on mine, absently traces my fingers. “So the first scene, I guess, is from a back corner of the classroom. The camera does a fast pan of the room and lands on a person—the gunman. He’s wearing dark-wash jeans and a black fleece jacket, and he’s got a floppy knit cap on his head.” He turns toward me a fraction. “Any questions so far?”

“Yeah,” I say. “About a hundred. Was there a clock or calendar anywhere?”

“Not that I saw.”

“Any writing on the whiteboard?”

“Yes, but I couldn’t read it.”

“A lot?”

“A few lines.”

“Like math equations or like sentences?”

“Sentences. Outline form. Ish.”

I rummage around in my coat pockets for a pen. I always used to keep a few handy for when I was doing deliveries. I find one in an interior pocket and pull it out. Sawyer hands me the notes, and I start jotting down things on the back of one page. “Okay, so probably not a math class, right?”

“Hunh. I guess that’s a reasonable assumption.”

“Did the guy have any snow on his shoulders or hat?”

“Um, I didn’t notice. I don’t think so.”

I start a second list on a different sheet of paper— things for Sawyer to look for next time.

“Did you get any view of the windows?”

He squeezes his eyes shut, thinking. “You know, I think maybe I did, but I don’t remember anything about them. The windows felt . . . dark. I’ll look again.”

I write that down and ask, “How tall was the guy?”

“Kind of short.”

“How could you tell?”

He pauses. “In relationship to the tables, he seemed short. Thin build.”

I nod. “Boots or shoes?”

His mouth parts and then closes again, and I write that one down for him to check on.

“It was dark, you said the other day. Darkish, anyway, because you could see the muzzle whatever fire thingy.”

“Yeah. Not totally dark. More like . . . dimly lit.”

“So it could just be from the shades being drawn? Like they were doing something with a projector? Or maybe it was stormy outside?”

“Maybe. I don’t know.” He sets his jaw. “I don’t know.” “I’m sorry.”

“No, it’s okay. You’re asking great questions. It’s just . . . hard.”

I nod. After a minute I ask, “What about the next scene?”

He looks at his notes. “Okay, so the angle changes. The camera, I mean. I think it’s at the front of the room, because the wall I can see in this next scene doesn’t have a whiteboard and the tables are on the left instead of the right. I—”

“Wait. Is anybody sitting at the tables or are the chairs empty?”

“Empty. Disorderly. Some of the chairs are tipped over.”

“There are no people? Just the shooter?” I watch his face. He stares straight ahead.

“There . . . are people.” His eyes glaze.

A shiver rolls down my back. Finally I whisper, “Where are the people, Sawyer?”

“They’re . . . in the back corner.”

“They’re standing in the back corner of the room?”

“Not standing.” His voice is wispy under the grumble of the fan. His eyelids droop shut and his face grows pained. “They’re . . . they’re on the floor. And there’s . . . stuff . . . everywhere.”

My stomach turns, and I don’t want to ask. “Stuff?”

He nods. “I don’t want to tell you.”

I can barely breathe. “You mean blood.”

“Yes. Blood.”

“More than blood?”

He takes in a sudden breath and blows it out through his mouth. “Yeah. Guts and brains, I guess. And . . . that’s all.”

I pull my hand out from under his and rub my forehead, almost feeling sick. I know how real the vision must look to him. And I know he’s looking at me to say something that can give him some hope. But it’s a long reach. “The thing is,” I say in a quiet voice, “is that if we get this right, and we find this classroom, and we stop this gunman, that scene will go away. It won’t happen. They won’t get shot, and they won’t die. Right?”

He’s frozen.

“Right,” I answer for him. “So we focus on finding the date, time, and place. And we don’t focus on the bodies and the blood and the . . . the stuff.”