Death by Facebook (41 page)

“
Goddammit!
Go after her!” The leader barked, not really knowing what he
was asking.

The
young man, full of adrenaline now and excitement called back. “I'm
on it!” He began running toward the trail head and quickly
found himself picking his way down rocks and a dirt trail riddled
with roots. He saw Janet not too far ahead and yelled at her.

“
Stop!
You're under arrest!” stumbling on a root and falling to his
hands. “Bitch!” Quickly he got up and continued his
chase. This collar would make his reputation on an island where
boredom was all anyone could claim.

Janet
saw one officer running after her as she made the first hairpin turn.
Her moped was small enough to maneuver well down the trail, but it
was beating against her sore hips and legs terribly. Somehow in her
compromised mind she thought the banshee, sirens still screaming in
the parking lot above, devil still chasing her along the trail, was
actually eating her flesh now. The pain was excruciating, but the
horror of being consumed was overpowering.

It
propelled her faster and faster. She could see the exit of the trail
head not much farther ahead. From there it was a relatively smooth
path across old pahoehoe lava to the plume. Her moped would easily
outdistance the blue devil gaining on her.

Janet
took one turn too quickly and fell, the moped falling on her skin and
the hot exhaust searing her bare leg.

“
Ahhh!”
she screamed. She saw the officer only one switchback above her,
his eyes wide with anticipation. He would surely devour her where
she lay! Quickly, she was up, the moped still running. Hopping back
on she felt another severe shot of pain rocket up into her brain from
her now broken ankle.

“
Stop!
Police!” The young officer knew that with his natural speed
he could probably catch the moped in the first twenty or thirty yards
of flat lava. He picked his way down the trail carefully, even if it
was leaps of six and seven feet at a time, downhill.

Janet
made the flats of the old lava crater and immediately found the
smooth trail she and Jimmy had walked that dark night so very long
ago. She slowed a moment as the memory hit her hard.

The
plume ahead was probably a mile away. It looked safe, inviting, far
from the monsters that wanted to capture her. Her attention focused
a moment too long on that thought.

The
young officer, fast and sure, made a flying tackle on Janet and the
moped, crushing all three of them into a rolling ball along the
ground.

“
Got
you!” he yelled as they rolled to a stop. He reached for his
handcuffs.

Janet
didn't feel any more pain at this point. Her hips, legs, left ankle
and now her back would have been screaming in agony if it had not
been for the incredible fear driving her to escape. She flailed her
hands at the blue monster and found something to grab onto. Grasping
it firmly, she pulled it.

The
young officer was still laying prostate on Janet with his handcuffs
in one hand. He was about to sit up when he felt the cold steel
barrel in his stomach.

He
didn't know what to do. His own gun was sticking harshly into his
flesh, the mad woman wild eyed and mumbling nonsense as she pushed it
even harder into him.

“
OK,
OK, you win,” he thought to say. What could he say, he was
about to be shot with his own gun. Classic screw up, he thought.
That will be my last thought. He expected the shot to happen
instantly, any moment.

“
Go
away,” Janet spat. “Go away.” She looked into
the handsome young face of a man, not a monster. Somehow, as she
thought lucidly for a brief moment, she had confused the two.

The
officer slowly lifted himself up and off Janet, dropping his
handcuffs as he did so. He got to his knees and put his hands up.

“
Don't
shoot, please.”

Janet
rolled over, still holding the gun toward the young man. The pain
was attempting to take her attention away again. The gun was heavy,
and her hand was falling under its weight until she stood quickly.

A
shot exploded from the muzzle just missing the officer, scaring both
of them.

“
Don't
shoot!” he yelled, getting up and running away from her.

Janet
looked at him briefly. Something seemed harmless about the young
man, dressed in the blue outfit.

“
Leave
me alone!” Janet screamed as more of the pain manifested. Her
voice, her new master summoned her to keep going. Throwing the gun
in the opposite direction of the young officer she mounted the still
running moped and sped away toward the plume.

He
wondered how he might have been so lucky. His own gun stuck into his
gut. Training films had said this was how most cops died in hand to
hand confrontations. He had survived. Watching the moped speed
away, bouncing along the rough trail in places, he felt his courage
return.

Looking
over at his gun laying next to the trail and then back to the moped
and the crazy redheaded woman, he reached for his radio as he began
to run.

“
In
pursuit!”

~~~

“
Jack,
this is Larry, over.”

Jack
walked away from Alice's desk to the open deck facing the crater of
Halema'uma'u.

“
Go
ahead Larry, what do you see? Over.”

Larry
was turning north in a gentle arch, toward the end of the jungle
leading up to the great crater opening.

“
Trails
on the north side look fine. Heading to the lava pit now.”

Jack
nodded. He might be able to send a team out this afternoon after
all.

“
Great
Larry, can you see the lava level in the pit yet? Over.”

Larry
was just clearing the two hundred foot cliff walls of the crater,
jungle dropping away to a gray hardened lava. In the near distance
was the pit of lava. The great floor of the crater was always
impressive, some fifty times larger than the smaller internal pit
where the lava and plume were.

Movement
caught his eye in an area where you would never see any, especially
lately. He turned his paraglider in the direction of the trail
leading up to the old abandoned lookout.

“
Jack,
you got people in the crater? Over.”

“
No,”
Jack said. Looking for his binoculars, Alice handed them to him.
“No one is in the crater, Larry.”

“
Well,
you got someone! There looks to be a guy running toward the pit.
And, it looks like a moped or motorcycle is ahead of him. Over.”

“
What
the hell?” Alice complained. More crazy tourists came to her
mind. It was like bugs to a flame.

“
I
see them,” Jack said looking into his binoculars with some
fascination. “What are they doing? Over.”

Larry
shook his head. That was a great question. They probably didn't
know the answer either.

“
I'm
going to fly low and warn them off. Over.” Larry dropped his
speed until he began a descent, and then headed on a path that would
intersect the moped.

The
young police officer, huffing and puffing by now, caught sight of the
paraglider descending toward Janet ahead of him. Was this some kind
of elaborate rescue? Just like in the movies?

“
Damn!”
he muttered, impressed with the drama of it all. He sped up as fast
as he could.

Janet
was rocketing toward the plume, her voice telling her it was the
right place to be. This would help Star, this would save Starshine
Aloha and her little beach. It would make things right with the
world. The static Janet had fought for years was a comfortable hum
in the background of her new voice. It was such a relief, like the
few good days she had at Star's beach, when the world seemed friendly
to her.

Visions
of Star pushing back the lava with her bare hands, burning her
fingers and her hair filled Janet's mind as the plume filled her
vision. She would save Star! She, Janet, would get the volcano to
stop its attack.

Larry
could see the moped rider clearly now. It was not a tourist, not
with the dirty clothes and battered look. He was aiming for a point
about ten feet in front of the rider as he quickly descended. The
guy chasing her looked like a police officer!

Swooping
down to about ten feet, between the boiling plume and the moped rider
only another couple of dozen feet away Larry looked over to see the
redheaded woman.

“
Turn
around!” Larry yelled at the top of his voice, as he swooped
past her, pulling up and turning behind her now. He climbed up
higher to get back to a safe altitude and tried to circle around
again. The police officer below him was watching him, as he stopped
running.

“
Larry!
What's going on down there? Over.” Jack couldn't believe the
flight maneuver his friend had just pulled off.

“
Damn
crazy moped rider!” Larry was climbing still and headed toward
the plume. In a moment it came to him. Red hair! Could it be the
same Cabin #94 wild thing he had met before? Could that be why the
police was chasing her?

“
Jack,
police office giving chase down here as well. Red headed girl on the
moped. Might be that murder suspect. Over.” He continued to
slow his forward progress. There was no way he could make another
pass this close to the plume. Wondering what the moped rider
intended to do when they got close to the edge he watched.

The
young officer was completely winded. The paraglider had not rescued
his suspect after all. He couldn't continue though, didn’t
want to get any closer to the active volcano either. The plume was
magnificent, he thought to himself, in a terrifying way. He watched
the moped moved faster toward the plume, now framed completely by the
boiling column racing up into the sky.

A
burst of tradewind from behind Larry pushed him a little closer to
the plume, causing him to turn slightly. From his height now, some
hundred feet, he watched as the plume fell to the side, showing the
yellow and orange lake of lava below.

Janet
felt content, she was a savior. She had redemption at her hands.
Starshine Aloha needed saving and the island needed saving from the
lava. She herself needed saving from her own sins. Jimmy's death
had been a mistake, even if he deserved it. She felt the voice kiss
her goodbye as she flew past the broken down barrier at the edge of
the lava pit.