The Last Handful of Clover - Book 2: Gifts Both Light and Dark

2.65 Unraveling

There were less than thirty seconds from the handoff, and Stan was suddenly looking grave. He had his hand to his earpiece, and he was staring into space. "Morgan, you need to hear this," he said, tapping his earpiece. "Something weird is going on..."

Morgan was just reaching for the mute switch on her belt pack when the sound of screaming and crashing came from down the hallway. Despite her curiosity about what Stan was hearing on his earpiece, the sound made her jump almost out of her skin. This wasn't somebody dropping a stack of dishes. This was something much, much worse. Turning to look behind her, she could see nothing but the open door of the cafeteria. They had passed it earlier in their tour, and the staff in there were making lunch for the thirty or so kids currently in the facility.

Later she would call it instinct. By all rights she shouldn't have abandoned the live shot that was coming up in just seconds. But something told her that what was happening through that door down the hall was far more important, and far more consequential, than the live bumper for her report on tonight's nightly news.

"Live shot's off!" she yelled over her shoulder. "Follow me!" But as she suspected, Stan had already seen her moving, and was detaching the camera from the tripod.

"Rolling!" he shouted, and was only a half-dozen steps behind her as they darted down the hall. Kids who were in the day rooms were pouring out and heading toward the commotion—tough looking kids, both male and female.

The dining room was separated from the main corridor by a pair of swinging doors. The room was empty, but as Morgan crashed through the door, she could pinpoint the commotion. The door from the lunchroom into the kitchen in the back was propped open, and Morgan could see that the staff had just been loading the day's lunch items into the steam tables when... something... had happened. A tray of lasagna was smeared across the floor, and steam rose from it in lazy swirls.

Whatever was happening was through the open door of the kitchen. And the screaming now was so loud and continuous that it even gave Morgan's hard-nosed reporting instincts pause. She stopped to take stock of the situation, but a handful of kids were already behind her, and pushing their way into the lunchroom. A half dozen of them burst past Morgan and her cameraman, heading for the kitchen.

One girl in particular was leading the charge. Morgan glanced at her as she darted past. She was probably fourteen, but looked like she had already endured a lifetime of street fights, and could scrap with the best. The girl didn't look back and was sprinting toward the open kitchen door—right into the screaming and crashing that was pouring out like a flood.

"Don't go in there!" Morgan screamed. But it was too late. The girl was already launching herself through the door. Morgan's instincts kicked back in, and she was only three steps behind the girl when she too entered the kitchen.

Stan, I hope you're getting this, she thought.

The scene in the kitchen was total chaos and made the spilled lasagna in the lunch room look quaint in comparison.

Morgan recognized the man instantly. He was the janitor, who had given the corridor a once-over, to prepare for her live shot. He had seemed like a nice older gentleman at the time, but that wasn't what he seemed like now.

In his hand was a broken broomstick, the end of it as sharp as a spear, and (oh, God, Morgan thought) it was covered in blood. The apparent victim of his attack was one of the old ladies who volunteered at the shelter, making food for the kids. She was lying on the floor, and it was clearly her screams they had heard. She was grasping her belly with one hand, and her neck with the other. Blood seeped from both wounds, and it was already pooling around her on the cold tile floor.