Chapter 24: Chapter 23 – Waking Up

As he gets to the door he turns, hearing the familiar laughter. He hears a couple more of their sentences. And then Ryan and the shooter disappear into Ryan’s dorm. Peter shakes the thought out of his head. Can’t be. That shit is gonna give him nightmares..

Peter takes a piss, the two pronged stream splashing all over the toilet seat. God dammit. He pulls his foreskin back and the dried cum from his recent tryst with Daisy splashes away, allowing the stream of urine to return to a single prong with twice as much accuracy. He steps away, and the automatic toilet flushes. He splashes water on his hands without really washing them, and avoids the gaze in the mirror, hating it even out of the periphery of his vision. 

He struggles down the hallway and back into the intern’s dorm. He gets into the too small twin size bed with her, and smells the nape of her neck. Drifting back to sleep with the stranger’s laughter in his ears. 

#

He wakes up around 6:10AM with an eye splitting headache. It’s like his stomach is trying to escape his body through the top of his head, like a murderous, backward Santa Clause. 

He goes to have a tequila shit (or throw up) and the same two guys are coming out of the dorm room. They’re carrying duffle bags and doing mickey mouse voices to each other. The realization hits him like a dump truck. This is the shooter. Right here. He’s going with this other guy to Disneyland. This is the big one they’ve been talking about. Peter, still in his tight underwear, digging into his dehydrated stomach, approaches the two guys as they reach the staircase. “Yo guys. What’s happening?” 

The shooter is quick with his response. “Just headed to the beach, man.” 

“What’s with the duffle bags?”

The shooter lifts one of them, casually. “Just towels and snorkeling gear and shit. Say… you aren’t an R.A., are you?” 

Peter, head pounding, forces a laugh. “Haha… no man I’m just with my girlfriend here. Look, I think I know what’s going on and I just want to say maybe let’s not do this. What’s the point?” 

“I’ve heard your voice before. Where do I know you from?” 

“I’m just telling you. If you just cut the shit right now. And leave these duffle bags here. You can just get away. I won’t tell anybody who you are.” 

The shooter sets his duffle bag down. In a quick move, he pulls an extendable baton from the deep back pocket of his black tactical cargo pants. He flicks his wrist and the baton extends outward. As it extends, its point, something that looks like a large bolt with the hole filled in, telescopes toward Peter, until it contacts the side of his temple. Pain explodes in Peter’s head. Lights fill his vision and he crumples to the ground. 

“Fucking retard.” The shooter nods to the door. Ryan opens it, and he and the shooter drag Peter into the room. 

“Should we kill him?” Ryan asks, trying to sound nonchalant about it. 

“Naw. Someone hears a gunshot here this whole fucking place is after us. Cut his throat, he might groan out or some shit, or get blood on us and some John Wayne security guard calls the police. We don’t want that fucking up our plans for us. We’re gonna have a lot more fun at Disneyland. By the bone structure on this pussy I might already have, anyway. He’s got the brow ridge of a ten year old. Alright, we gotta beat traffic.” The shooter claps Ryan on the shoulder. 

#

An hour and a half later, Peter is woken up by the sound of himself drowning in his own vomit. He turns over, spits, coughs, and pukes out ther remainder of the whiskey and lime chips he’d ingested the previous evening. Disoriented, he examines Ryan’s dorm room. Nothing in it, until he sees the Twitch.tv sticker on the bed post. 

The executive runs out into the hall, still in his underwear. He opens Daisy’s door and rushes into her room. “Where’s my phone? Where the fuck is my phone?” He rummages through his pants. She pops up on her elbow, still half-asleep. 

“I put it on the charger.” He jumps toward the charger, slipping and tripping on the shoes he had drunkenly kicked off the night before. He yanks the phone off the charger, and scrolls to Mr. Kaiser’s personal number. “What happened to your face?” Peter feels the half dry blood on his temple and looks in the mirror. He touches the blood on his nose and his head explodes in pain again. Broken. Blood gushes out. 

“I’ll explain in a second. The shooter. The shooter is going to Disneyland.” 

“Oh my god.” 

Peter puts the phone on speaker and gets dressed while he waits for the President of Disney to answer.

The deep voice of Mr. Kaiser calmly comes through from the other side. “Peter. You’re up early. Or just up late?” A rich chuckle follows. 

“The shooter is going to Disneyland. Today. Right now. It’s the big day he kept talking about. Right fucking now. We need to warn people. He knocked me out. They could already fucking be there I don’t I don’t. Are you listening to me?” 

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After a beat, the honeyed voice emits from the speaker again. “Slow down, son. The shooter? Disneyland?” 

Peter yanks his belt on and fumbles with the buckle. “God fucking dammit I’m not recording you. This fucking impropriety shit. The fucking shooter is going to Disneyland to kill people.” 

“Well that’s not good. Have you contacted the police? No not yet, can’t you fucking contact the park and shut it down? We need to evacuate, we can’t have this much blood on our hands. I'm done with this shit.” 

“Peter… COVID-19 has not been good for business, has it?” 

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Ticket sales are down and unlikely to recover for the next few years… if ever. Parks cost a lot of money to operate. The business model is simply outdated. If some unfortunate calamity like a mass shooting took place at one of our parks… from a purely financial standpoint, the insurance payout would recoup most of our losses from the past year… which is to say nothing of the good faith consumers will feel towards our brand for generations to come. Look how much good faith September 11th brought the US government… military… police… firefighters… just American flag sales in general. If a shooting happened at one of our parks… the unfortunate reality is that there’s simply no price tag on that good faith and feeling.” 

“What… you’re…. You knew? You know?” 

“Peter… Please don’t be naive. I suggest you go back to bed or… get in bed if you’ve been out drinking or consuming recreational drugs. Just get some sleep. There’s nothing for you to worry about and whatever happens in one of our theme parks… it’s simply not your department or your level of clearance. Is that clear?” 

Peter picks up his phone and spits into the receiver, “You’re fucking evil.” 

After a few seconds… 

“Goodbye Peter.” And a click. 

Daisy watches in horror. “What are you going to do?” 

“I’m going to Disneyland.” 

#

As Peter speeds down Lincoln Boulevard in his Tesla he calls Karen. “Pick up pick up pick up. Fucking pick up.” 

“Hey. Peter?” Peter peels around the onramp, his Tesla automatically slowing down to prevent its centrifugal force from slamming it into the concrete sidewall of the onramp. 

“Karen. It’s bad. It’s way worse than we could have ever imagined.” 

“Just say it. I don’t care what it is at this point.” 

“The shooter is on his way to Disneyland. I called Disney and they’re fucking in on it. Or just. Complicit. I don’t know. I’m going there now. I’m gonna try to evacuate it. The higher ups aren’t gonna do shit. Look at the emails. Spread the word. I don’t know what the hell is gonna happen to me but you were right about this shit.” 

“Pick me up. I’m not letting you go alone.” 

“Karen.. no.. I can't. I got us into this shit in the first place. It’s my responsibility.” 

“Bullshit you didn’t. I found him on those videos. I brought it to you. Without me he probably would’ve been dead after a couple shootings. I gotta stop him if I can.” 

“You know what. I’m so glad you said that. I was gonna shit myself if I had to go by myself. I’ll be there in like fifteen, there’s barely any traffic right now.”

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