Day 223

[from A Thousand Miles to San Francisco]

[AUTHOR NOTES: This is one of the most critical scenes in the entire novel. I want to get across the chaos and confusion that ensues after such a tragic event. Someday, if it's possible, I want to travel to Aurora and interview those who survived the shooting, as well as their loved ones, so I can get a sense of what it was truly like for them in the aftermath of the shooting. For now, this is merely my best guess.]

As luck would have it, Dawn was indeed being treated at the Medical Centre of Aurora, at its main campus on South Potomac Street. From what the operator had said, Samantha guessed that her friend was still alive, but she felt that she had to make sure. She hurried out into the driveway and got into her car, a blue 2004 Ford Focus. The roads were always fairly busy on Friday mornings, and it would probably be even worse today given what had happened, but Samantha was not concerned about this. All she was concerned about was Dawn, and whether she was okay.

It took Samantha about half an hour to drive to the hospital, with the traffic becoming worse and worse the closer she got. After all, she couldn't have been the only one who was headed to the hospital in search of their loved ones. Mercifully, there were still a few parking spaces available, and Samantha quickly pulled into the nearest one she could find. Her parking wasn't exactly straight, but again, she was not concerned about this. She had bigger things on her mind than parking etiquette.

Samantha got out of the car and hurried to the entrance, whereupon she found that the queue for the reception desk had been split into two. Presumably, one line was for those who were actually sick, and the other was for those who were only here to visit. Most of the chairs in the waiting area were also occupied. Samantha saw a man sitting there with his arm in a bloodied sling, and wondered whether he had been one of the victims of the shooting. Sitting nearby, she saw a woman, still wearing her dressing gown, sobbing uncontrollably as an orderly tried in vain to console her. It was a horrifying, morbid scene, one that Samantha had only ever seen in news footage before, and one that she had never expected to experience in real life.

Her solemn reflection was suddenly interrupted by a female nurse approaching her. "Excuse me," she asked. "Are you here to visit a casualty, or are you here for an emergency appointment?"

"I'm here to visit my friend," said Samantha. "She was, uhh… you know… in the…" Samantha found herself unable to say it, and her voice trailed off.

"It's okay," said the nurse, giving her a gentle hug. "If you'd please like to go into this queue here, okay? Just to speed things up a bit for everyone."

Samantha nodded, and allowed the nurse to shepherd her into the longer of the two queues. She then found herself waiting for almost an hour, a wait that seemed both interminable and unbearable. At one stage, an elderly man, perhaps a grandfather, was suddenly led away from the front of the queue as he began to weep and moan with sorrow, having no doubt received the worst possible news. This only intensified the dread within Samantha's own heart, and the wait became all the more agonizing.

Finally, she was at the front of the queue, faced with a nurse who looked like she was trying her best to force a smile but was finding it increasingly hard to. Samantha couldn't really blame her, given the sombre atmosphere in the hospital, and the sheer volume of visitors. "Good morning," said the receptionist. "Who are you here to see?"

Samantha's voice caught in her throat for a moment before she responded. "Dawn… Dawn Harvey. I heard she was brought in this morning after the…?"

The receptionist nodded, typing Dawn's name into her computer. "Let's see… ah, yes. She was admitted several hours ago. She's in a stable condition, and should make a full recovery."

Samantha breathed a heavy sigh of relief, feeling her worries evaporate. "Thank goodness… where is she?"

***

After several minutes of walking through corridors, Samantha found herself in a large ward containing over a dozen beds. She made her way through, glancing at each patient in turn as she passed them, checking to see if they were Dawn. Finally, she located her friend near the centre of the ward.

Dawn was lying awake in her hospital bed, and although her face was partly hidden by her phone, held in her right hand, Samantha could see that she was in some discomfort. The source of this pain was immediately and shockingly clear: a bandaged wound on her shoulder that was no doubt the work of the shooter. It had been wrapped neatly in bandages, but the blood had soaked through them, even staining the sheets and pillow slightly as well. Absorbed by whatever was on her phone screen, and no doubt distracted by her pain, Dawn had not noticed her friend's arrival.

The whole ward suddenly seemed deafeningly silent to Samantha, save for the relentless, rhythmic beeping of the heart monitor at Dawn's bedside, telling her that her friend was still alive. Even Samantha's own footsteps seemed to fall silent as she slowly approached the cubicle. Dawn seemed to have heard the footsteps, however, for she suddenly looked up from her phone, looking mildly surprised. "Samantha," she said, putting down her phone. "What are you doing here?"

Samantha felt a sudden, immeasurable relief at hearing Samantha's voice again. It was the final, ultimate proof that her friend really was going to be alright. She rushed to her friend's side and give her a tight hug. "I'm visiting my best friend," she said.

Day 182

[from A Thousand Miles to San Francisco]

"You know, I picked up a guy in Palm Springs once - must have been about twelve years ago now - he was heading to San Francisco too, but for a completely different reason. His name was Max, he was an IT wizard or something. He used to run some kinda online business - can't remember what it was called, or what it did - but when the dot-com bubble burst back in 2000, his company was one of those that went under. Guy lost everything: his job, his house, his money, his girlfriend… he told me he had nothing left, so he was gonna throw himself off the Golden Gate Bridge and end it all."

Samantha gasped, horrified. "What? Really?" she said.

John nodded. "Yep," he said. "'Course, he only told me that after I'd let him in and set off again. I said, I'm not driving you all the way to San Francisco just so you can kill yourself when you get there, that's almost five hundred miles. He was begging me, he said, 'I know I sound crazy, but that's where I want it all to end'.

"I looked over at the guy -- looked him dead in the eyes -- and I could see that he was desperate. But more than that, he was scared. Really scared. I fought in Vietnam for four years, I know what a man looks like when he's scared, and this guy was scared out of his mind. He'd had everything he'd ever worked for taken away from him in the blink of an eye, and he just didn't know what to do with himself. I realized he was so scared, he'd stopped thinking straight, and he'd somehow decided that suicide was the only option left to him. But I knew that deep down inside, he didn't really believe that. So I looked him dead in the eyes, and I told him, 'I don't think you want to kill yourself. Not really. I can see how frightened you are. If you really wanted to kill yourself, you wouldn't have hailed my truck, you would've jumped out in front of it.'

"Max then explained to me that the reason he wanted to go to the Golden Gate Bridge to kill himself was because he'd made a suicide pact with a woman he'd met online. Her husband had left her for another woman, and taken their kid with him, and she'd decided she couldn't live without her family. However, she didn't wanna die alone, so she'd been searching on the Internet for someone to join her in San Francisco and leap off the bridge with her. They'd met on some kinda Internet chat room, and they'd agreed to meet at the bridge that night and jump off together.

"He told me I was right: he was scared. He was having second thoughts about going through with it, but he didn't know what else to do. I told him to just take some time, think about what to do next with his life. 'You got all the time in the world,' I told him, 'you're still pretty young.' Honestly, he couldn't have been older than thirty. Seeing someone that young with so little hope was pretty darn sad. I told him he still had plenty of time left to get things sorted out, and to make something of himself. Hell, he owned his own company. It might not have worked out for him, but that's a lot more than I ever accomplished.

"So finally, Max admitted that I was right. He didn't really wanna die; he just wanted a solution, a way to fix his life. He hadn't been able to find one, so he felt like his only remaining option was suicide, but he told me he now realized that he just hadn't been looking hard enough, or thinking hard enough about it. I asked if he wanted me to turn around and take him back to Palm Springs, and he said no. He still wanted me to take him to the Golden Gate Bridge, but instead of throwing himself off of it, he was gonna try and talk the woman out of jumping, just like I'd talked him out of it. He told me, 'If I'm gonna try and build a new life, then I think she should try and build a new life as well'."

Samantha found herself rather touched by the whole story, but also a little anxious about its ending. "That's so sweet," she said. "So what happened in the end? Did he manage to save her?"

John merely shrugged. "I don't know," he said. "We got to San Francisco at about ten o'clock at night, I dropped him off as close to the bridge as I could get, he thanked me for all my help, and then he disappeared into the night. Never saw him again. For all I know, he might have jumped after all. I do wonder sometimes what happened to him, and to that other woman, but I guess I'll never know."

Samantha nodded. "I guess not," she said. For a fleeting moment, she had thought about trying to track him down upon reaching San Francisco, but in a city of four million people, and with nothing to go by except his first name, it would be utterly impossible. Besides, even if she did find out, she would most likely never see John again either. Somehow, however, not knowing how the story ended made it all the more intriguing and mysterious.

[AUTHOR NOTE: Sadly for you guys, you ARE going to learn how it ends! Not today, however, since it's almost 2am and I'm exhausted. I could just put it in a paragraph-long epilogue here, but why not write a full scene about it? This scene will most likely be exclusive to Project 20:15 and won't be in the final novel, so look forward to it at some point in the future.]

Day 179

[from A Thousand Miles to San Francisco]

Samantha woke up as usual on Friday morning, ready for another day of work. As usual, she had the weekend off, and was already looking forward to it. Perhaps she could find another movie to watch with Dawn, to make up for having not been able to go with her last night.

Her routine that morning was the same as usual. She went to the bathroom, had a brief shower, then headed back to her bedroom to dry off and get changed. With that done, she headed downstairs and started to pour herself a bowl of cereal. At the same time, she switched on the TV, curious as ever to find out what had happened in the world overnight.

Almost immediately, Samantha realized that something terrible had happened somewhere in the country. The news footage depicted a darkened, cordoned-off street, with several ambulances and police cars parked in the vicinity. An officer was escorting a woman away from the scene, wrapping her in a blanket; she seemed bloodied, and somewhat traumatized. Whatever had happened on that street, it hadn't been pretty.

"-is in custody, having been arrested outside the theatre just minutes after the shooting began," the reporter was saying. "Reports indicate that the shooter was wearing bulletproof clothing, and that many inside the theatre at the time of the shooting believed that he, like a number of others, was attending the screening in costume. One of the officers who-"

Samantha let out a sigh. It was always depressing whenever a mass shooting happened, especially in her home state. She had been nine years old when the Columbine massacre occurred elsewhere in Colorado, and at the time she'd been too young to understand why such a thing could happen. Even now, she still wasn't sure if she understood. Perhaps there was no reason.

Samantha noticed that the news ticker at the bottom of the screen had scrolled to the sports results - no matter what had happened elsewhere in the world, there were still those more interested in whether the Broncos or the Rockies had won their respective games. Shortly it would scroll back to the start of the ticker, and the day's main news story, which was no doubt this mass shooting. She waited with bated breath, anxious to see where the shooter had struck.

"TEN DEAD, DOZENS INJURED AFTER GUNMAN ATTACKS CINEMA IN AURORA, CO."

The cereal bowl crashed to the floor, spilling cornflakes and milk all over the chequered tiling. Samantha stared at the TV in a state of shock, her wide eyes following the hateful caption until it had scrolled all the way off the edge of the screen. Her knees suddenly felt weak, and her chest heavy. A torrent of thoughts rushed through her head, drowning out the voice of the news reporter so that she could no longer hear them. The kitchen around her seemed to have been plunged into deadly silence, all by that one simple, dreadful sentence.

Of all Samantha's jumbled thoughts, the one she clung to the strongest was that this couldn't possibly be real. There was no way it could actually be happening. But as the camera zoomed in on the front of the cinema, there could be no denying it: the shooting had occurred at the very cinema, the very screening that Dawn had attended last night. The very same screening that she herself could potentially have attended.

As the reality of the news began to sink in, Samantha's immediate instinct was to rush to the hospital and check that Dawn was okay. But which hospital? How did she know where Dawn had been admitted to? How did she even know that Dawn had been admitted to a hospital? Maybe there had been no need for that in her case. Maybe there had been no point. Samantha furiously shook the thought from her mind. She couldn't bear to think about the possibility that Dawn might be dead, when she could have been right there in the theatre, and could have saved her. Then suddenly the horrifying thought rushed through her mind once more: if she had been there at the time, maybe she would have been killed as well.

Whatever the truth was, she had to find out. The anxiety was tearing her apart from the inside. Her legs still felt weakened and numb, and she felt she might collapse to the floor at any time, joining the shattered remnants of her fallen cereal bowl. Gripping onto the kitchen counter, she staggered over to the table and sat down, the jolt of her backside against the chair bringing her harshly back to reality. Rummaging quickly in her pocket, she took out her phone and began to dial Dawn's number. She had to know.

Putting it to her ear, she was met with the sickeningly familiar dialling tone. "Come on, Dawn, pick up," she muttered to herself in desperation. "Please pick up…"

The phone continued to ring for what felt like an age. Finally, she heard the one thing she had been dreading above all others, that cold automated message: "The number you are trying to reach is not currently available. Please check the-" Samantha hung up, cutting the message off, and opened her phone's internet browser, frantically looking up the contact details of the nearest hospitals. If Dawn was in one of those hospitals, then she would be okay. Everything would be okay. If she wasn't in one of those hospitals… Samantha didn't want to think about it.

Within minutes, she had found the phone number for The Medical Centre of Aurora, one of the nearest hospitals to the cinema where the shooting had happened. She knew that the switchboards would likely be jammed up with people like her inquiring about their friends and loved ones, but she had to try and get through. Dialling the number, she put the phone to her ear and the agonizing waiting game began anew.

Day 56

[from A Thousand Miles to San Francisco]

Wednesday began as a normal day for Samantha. She headed into work as usual, and settled down at her desk on the fourth floor, ready for another day of moving numbers back and forth. It wasn't very long, however, before her supervisor Rachel made her way over for what Samantha guessed would be an important discussion.

"Hey, can I talk to you for a minute, Sam?" she asked.

"Sure," said Samantha. Having not really started yet, she was happy for an excuse to put off the drudgery for a few moments more. She expected to have to follow Rachel to her office, but instead, Rachel launched into her talk right then and there.

"Okay," said Rachel, "this morning we just got a big new set of invoices from several of our clients, including one of yours. We're already a little behind as it is, what with that bug that was going around - not that you could help being ill, but y'know, it's not very convenient from our point of view… anyway, what I'm saying is, we've got a massive backlog to clear now, and not as much time as I'd like. So, I was hoping you and a few of the others would be willing to put in some overtime, just until we've caught back up to where we need to be. You'll be paid overtime, of course - I'm not a slave driver, you know me."

"How much overtime are we talking here?" asked Samantha. She didn't really have any commitments that might be affected by this, but it would still be nice to know.

"Well, the longest they'll let me keep you here is seven, so… ideally, until seven," said Rachel.

Samantha blew hard out of her mouth. "How long for?" she asked warily.

"Until it's done, however long that might be," said Rachel. "So the harder you work now, the less late nights you'll have to work."

"You make it sound like I've already said yes," said Samantha.

"Well, I don't wanna pressure you into it," admitted Rachel, "but I have to admit, my manager isn't too happy with the amount of slack I cut you guys. If it were up to him, you'd already be doing the overtime just to make up for the days you missed. But it's not up to him. It's up to me, so I'm giving you the choice. If you wanna do it, then like I said, I'll pay you overtime, and if you guys need caffeine to stay awake, or whatever, then I'm happy to get you some coffee. If you don't wanna do it, I'll find someone who will."

"What if nobody wants to do it?" asked Mark, sitting at the next desk along, having apparently been listening to the entire conversation. "You gonna draw lots or something?"

"Actually, yes," said Rachel, turning to him with a smirk, "and I'll put your name in four times." Mark took the jibe in good spirits, nodding with a grin before turning back to his computer.

Rachel turned back her attention back to Samantha. "Well, when you've decided what you wanna do, swing by my office and give me a shout, okay?" she said.

But Samantha had already made up her mind. "Eh- no, actually, it's okay, I'll do it," she said. "If it's one of the companies I'm dealing with, then it's my responsibility anyway, right?"

Rachel nodded, and smiled approvingly. "That's true," she said.

"And anyway," added Samantha, "I could always use the extra money."

Rachel's smile grew into a small, amused grin. "Couldn't we all," she said. "Alright, I'll go talk to some of the others about this, and then I'll go let the manager know. Keep up the good work, Sam."

"Thank you," said Samantha. "Will do." Rachel turned to go, but a question suddenly occurred to Samantha. "Oh, wait! Uhh… when will the overtime start? You know… what day?"

"Tomorrow, most likely," said Rachel. "I won't make you stay behind today, as it's too short-notice, but tomorrow will be fine, right?"

"Yeah, tomorrow's fine," said Samantha, nodding. "Okay, thank you."

"Don't mention it," said Rachel. With a curt nod, she headed off on her way, and Samantha settled down to a long day of manipulating spreadsheets.

***

Once again, Samantha was relaxing after dinner later that day when her phone began to ring. She checked the caller ID, then smiled and answered. "Hey, Dawn," she said.

"Hey, Sam!" Even down the phone, Samantha could sense the excitement in Dawn's voice. "I got the tickets for The Dark Knight Rises! It's all booked now!"

"Oh, that's great!" said Samantha. "When is it, then?"

"I managed to get tickets for a midnight screening over in Aurora, this Friday," said Dawn. "I know it's a bit short-notice, but you've got nothing going on then, right?"

"Midnight?" repeated Samantha, her stomach starting to sink. "Ohh… sorry, Dawn, but I don't think I'm gonna be able to make it."

"What?!" exclaimed Dawn. "Oh, come on, Sam, I've been looking forward to this all week! You could have at least told me before I bought the tickets!"

"I know, I'm really sorry," said Samantha apologetically. "It's just, we've suddenly had a whole bunch of work piled on top of us, and now they're making me do overtime starting tomorrow, and I'm sorry, but I'm just not gonna be able to stay awake that long. I'm tired now and I only worked nine-to-five today, I'll be working nine-to-seven tomorrow and there's no way I can make it to 2am, or whenever the film's gonna finish. Sorry."

"No, no, it's okay," said Dawn, "I understand. I should apologize as well; I got a little over-excited about this, I guess. I probably should have talked this over with you before I booked the tickets, you know, and tried to find a time that would suit us both… instead I just booked the earliest screening I could find. Should I-"

"No, it's fine, really," said Samantha quickly, "you can still go. Don't let my work commitments get in the way of your fun. You can always just sell the extra ticket on eBay or something, you can probably get, like, a hundred dollars for it."

 "I think there's websites for that, where you can sell unwanted tickets," said Dawn thoughtfully. "But, isn’t it a bit sad to go to the cinema by yourself?"

"Maybe," said Dawn, "but I think it's sadder if you refuse to go just because I can't come with you. I mean, you said you were so excited about it, you booked the earliest possible screening for it… please, Dawn, just go, I can always watch it some other time. It's no big, deal, really-"

"Alright, alright, I'll go," said Dawn, chuckling. "Geez, now who's over-reacting? Alright, tell you what: once you know when you'll be free, I'll pay for your ticket myself. Is that a deal?"

"It's a deal," said Samantha, nodding. "Okay, have fun, Dawn."

"I'll try," said Dawn. "Oh… but we still need to meet up sometime, don't we? How about we just, I dunno, go out for a coffee sometime? Something simple, you know?"

"You mean something I can't cancel at short notice?" joked Samantha.

Dawn chuckled. "You can, but if you cancel on me twice in a row, I'll be pissed. You know that, right?"

"I won't," said Samantha. "That's a promise."

"Alright, well, I'll speak to you later," said Dawn. "Have fun at work."

"I'll try," chuckled Samantha.

"Alright, bye."

"Bye," said Samantha, and the two hung up at almost exactly the same time.

Day 27

[from A Thousand Miles to San Francisco]

After dinner, Samantha sat down on the sofa to relax and watch some TV. Not five minutes later, her phone began to ring. With a sigh, Samantha muted the TV - it was a repeat, so she wasn't missing anything - and answered. "Hello?"

"Hey Sam, it's me." The voice on the other end belonged to her best friend, Dawn. They had met in high school, and had remained friends after they graduated, though their differing workplaces meant that they didn't see as much of each other as they had used to. "Just thought I'd give you a call, since we haven't seen each other in a while. How you feeling? I heard you were kinda ill recently."

"Yeah, it was just a cold or something," said Samantha. "Don't worry, I feel fine now."

"Okay, great," said Dawn. "Work treating you alright?"

"Yeah, same as always," said Samantha. "Manager wasn't too pleased that I was out for a week, but hey, I can't help being ill, can I?"

"Nope," said Dawn. "Hey, can I moan to you for a minute?"

Samantha shifted into a lying-down position on the sofa, her knees bent so she could fit on. "Sure. Moan away."

Dawn made an annoyed noise down the phone. "I had the rudest woman in the shop today." Dawn worked at the customer service desk for a major clothing retailer. "She came up with a dress, saying, 'I'd like to return this dress, please'. I told her I'd need the receipt. She said she didn't have it. I told her, 'It's company policy, we can't accept returns unless you can provide proof of purchase". So she was like, 'Are you accusing me of stealing?' And I was like, 'No, I'm just saying, you have to provide the receipt before we can accept it," and she was like, 'You're accusing me of stealing this. I want to talk to your manager, because that's outta line.' And I was like, 'Alright, I'll get the manager' - y'know, still trying to be all nice and polite and stuff, because you're not allowed to get mad at them no matter how mad they are at you - Sandy comes down, and she's dealt with these kinda people before, so I know how this is gonna go down.

"The woman says to her, 'This woman is accusing me of stealing this dress, I want you to do something about that'. I've already explained to Sandy what's going on, so Sandy just says, 'She's not accusing you of stealing anything. If you go home and get the receipt, we'll be happy to accept the return'. 'What do I need the receipt for?' she goes. 'Proof of purchase,' says Sandy, 'company policy'. 'So you're accusing me of stealing as well?!' says the woman, and she goes off on this rant, saying how she's never gonna shop here again, and she's gonna tell all her friends not to shop here, and Sandy just says, with this bitter sarcastic smile on her face, 'We're sorry to lose your patronage', and then the woman stormed out."

"Jesus," exclaimed Samantha. "How rude!"

"I know," said Dawn wearily; Samantha could almost see her rolling her eyes. "But the moment she was gone, Sandy was like - pardon my French here - she said, "Wow, what a total bitch. Sorry you had to deal with that, Dawn," and, you know, that just made me feel a lot better, knowing I had her support. We all had a good laugh about it afterwards, I feel fine now, but… ugh. Sometimes the people I have to deal with just wind me up so much, you know?"

"Yeah, I can imagine," said Samantha, nodding. "I hope you don't have to deal with people like that too often."

"Oh, not at all," said Dawn, "about 99.9 percent of them are perfectly decent, ordinary folk. It's just that little 0.1 percent that are just determined to make you feel beneath them." Dawn heaved a sigh, and Samantha could tell that she was done with her rant, and feeling much better for it. "Thanks, Samantha," she said. "I needed to get all that off my chest."

"It's no problem," said Samantha. "We all need a little moan now and then, right?"

"Yep," said Dawn. "Okay, on to a rather more happy topic… since it's been a while since we last met up, I was thinking maybe we could go see a movie or something?"

"Yeah, that'd be cool," said Samantha, nodding. "Hey, isn't The Dark Knight Rises coming out this week? I wanted to go see that."

"Yeah, it's out this Friday," said Dawn. "I'll see if I can get us some tickets."

"Alright, thanks, Dawn," said Samantha, smiling. "I'm looking forward to it already."

"Me too," said Dawn. "Alright, I gotta go: I got some stuff I need to do. I'll see you soon."

"Okay, see ya," said Samantha. "Bye."

"Bye," said Dawn, before hanging up.