shooting,” she said.
I felt my heart drop. I couldn’t even imagine how terrifying something like that must have been even though I’d thought about it before. You couldn’t live in this day and age without having it at least cross your mind once or twice.
The tears started falling from her eyes again, but I wasn’t even sure she noticed.
“I was a senior in high school. My brother came home from college for the weekend because he wanted me to go to some Halloween haunt thing with him at the local amusement park. You know what I’m talking about?”
She focused on me as I said, “Yeah. Like at Knott’s Berry Farm out here?”
“Exactly.” She sniffed and wiped at her face with the back of her hand. “We both love scary movies and stuff,” she said with a slight laugh. “Anyway, we were in line for a ride when the shooting started. At first, you don’t have any idea what the sound is because your brain is so focused on the fact that it’s something that doesn’t belong, and it doesn’t process what it might actually be.”
The sound of her voice was enough to make me break down in tears myself, just from listening to her.
“I remember that shooting,” Mac said, sounding as heartbroken as I was.
“You start making excuses to explain what you’re hearing. Like maybe it was a ride or a special effect or fireworks or something. You never once think it’s a gun. At least, I didn’t. But then everyone started running toward us. I mean, swarms of people like you can’t even imagine, all running the same direction, screaming that there was a shooter.” She refilled her glass and took a small sip. “My brother grabbed my hand, looked me in the eyes, and told me to run. I’d never heard that tone in his voice before. There was all this smoke from the smoke machines, and it was, like, pitch-black. I mean, none of the normal lights were on because it was a Horror Night thing, but they never turned them on. Not even while someone was shooting. They kept us in the dark to fend for ourselves as we tried not to die.”
I gripped the side of the counter for balance, knowing that Rocky was reliving this moment in excruciating detail as she explained it to us, and I hoped like hell her brother hadn’t been killed.
“We ran, hearing the pops behind us, around us, everywhere. The girl next to me fell, and to this day, I have no idea if she tripped on something or if she got shot because I couldn’t fucking see anything, you know? My brother said we couldn’t stop until we got outside. No matter what. He never let go of my hand. Not even when we were both so coated in sweat that we shouldn’t have been able to grip anything, let alone each other.”
More tears fell, and she wiped her eyes with the back of her sleeve and started sucking in small breaths. “So, that’s why I got so scared today. I thought there was another shooter. And I haven’t been this triggered in a long time.”
“Is your brother okay?” I asked, remembering all about that shooting and how unbelievable it was that it’d happened at an amusement park. It emphasized the fact that absolutely nowhere was safe anymore. Not when someone had it in their mind that they wanted to kill people. All it took was a gun and some ammunition.
“Yeah. I mean, he has flashbacks, and we both get triggered by loud noises and crowds. The biggest change for him though was that he used to like to hunt, and now, he hates it. He can’t be around people shooting, or he freaks out. See, I’ve always hated guns, but now, I’m scared of them too.”
“I can’t even imagine going through that,” Mac said as he swallowed hard, looking and sounding completely emotional by Rocky’s account of events. “I don’t think I’d ever leave my house again.”
I assumed Mac was exaggerating, but I thought Rocky appreciated the fact that he was trying to make her feel more normal.
“It was really hard at first, being around people I didn’t know. Like, all of a sudden, I didn’t trust anyone anymore. We pass by hundreds of strangers in a day, and before that, I never once thought that one of them might pull out a gun and try to shoot me. But after, it’s all I think about.”
My mind