Some saw the wisdom in that, and crouched down where they were, trying to stay below the seat back in front of them. Others tried frantically to escape, crowding the stairwells, panicked by recent incidents across the nation where random acts of gun violence had resulted in many deaths in a suburban shopping mall and in a rural high school. But people began to calm down when they realized that the shooting had stopped, and the initial chaos was being replaced by a more orderly evacuation.
Since Monty and Laura had not yet entered the stands, they were in the forefront of the mob of people rushing out the south entrance. They had started to slow down once they were well clear of the building, when Monty suddenly felt something hard pressed against his back. Ranny had pulled his .38 from his pocket and used the flap of his long coat to help conceal it as he stuck it in the back of the tall cowboy ahead of him.
"Keep running to your car, or you'll be as dead as those two bastards back in there!" Ranny hissed. "You two are my ticket out of here."
Monty partially turned his head and said over his shoulder, "Alright, just take it easy and I'll get you to my truck down by the cow barns, but let the girl go."
"Forget that", Ranny snarled. "Two hostages are better than one, and don't get any ideas about being a hero or your girlfriend will get it first."
"She's someone I just met, and she shouldn't be involved in this, Monty protested, as all three ran down through the dim light past the cow barns.
"She's coming too, so shut up!" was Ranny's furious response.
When they got to the truck and trailer, Ranny sized up the situation quickly. He had been around these rigs for years, and he saw that Monty's was a fifth wheel hitch, with a small enclosed compartment which extended over the pickup bed and above the hitch. It had a door just large enough to squeeze in a couple of bales of hay or a couple of saddles, and had a small sliding window in the front which could be opened to provide ventilation to the animals in the trailer.
"I'm going to get up in there to hide, and then you're going to drive me out of here. If you get any smart ideas about tipping off anybody, I've got this and I'll sure use it again", and Ranny flipped his coat open to let them see the M-16. "Now give me your cell phones!"