Read Harmonic: Resonance for Free Online

wrestled and shouted back and forth, the others closed in. One of the group pulled at Sean’s arm, while another man flew in with a fist. The collective yell swelled in volume, deepened in pitch, and was punctuated by the intermittent screech of rubber-soled shoes on the church hall’s wood floor, and by the dull, flat sounds of impacting limbs.
    Gary jumped down from the stage as groups of people swarmed in, and he pushed his way into the writhing crowd. It was hard to see who was fighting for whom, but it seemed like everyone wanted some part in it. A large man squeezed into the melee, while a teenage boy, cupping a hand to his dripping and bloody face, crawled out between the kicking, stomping fence of legs.
    “Jesus,” Powell said, as he rushed toward the boy I now recognized as Jason, the seventeen-year-old cashier from the gas station.
    Jason, pointing back at the crowd, tried to get past Powell to re-enter the fight. I watched, dumbfounded, as Powell tried to hold him back. Then Powell spun toward the fight and edged his way in, turned sideways, pushing and shoving his way through. People, who days before, had requested water, blankets, and food, people who had been too tired to stand, were now pushing, kicking, punching, and screaming.
    I made my way to Jason; his nose was obviously broken and leaking a steady stream of blood that dripped from his chin. He spat a mouthful of blood and ranted through his hand when I was near enough to hear. “I was trying to get them to stop. They’re trying to drag the little girl out from under the piano.”
    “Where are your parents?” I asked.
    “They’re in there too,” he said and lowered his gaze to the floor. All the fight seemed to drain out of him quicker than the blood from his nose, and I wondered what side his parents had taken in the fight.
    “Stay here, I’ll try to find the little girl,” I said, unsure of how I was going to accomplish the task I had set for myself.
    I waved to get the preacher’s attention. He rushed over, leaned down, and helped me up onto the stage. The piano rang out with a dissonant chord as two of the men plowed into it before taking their fight to the ground, their arms working like two sets of blood-leaking pistons driving alternating blows at each other’s faces and bodies.
    As I stared down into the whirlpool of violence, I realized it was not only the men of the group, but the women too, and they were just as vicious as the men. I called to Haley, forgetting for a second she was deaf, and cursed myself over the folly. Flat on my stomach, my arm hanging down between the stage and the piano, I waved my hand and tapped on the piano’s underside. She put her small shaking hand in mine and peered up at me through the gap with reddened eyes, wide open and lined with tears.
    The preacher joined me and helped pull her up onto the stage; she ran behind my legs, making herself as small as possible and putting me between her and the melee. Powell was on his hands and knees, slumped over Sean’s no longer flinching body, while Gary tried desperately to hold back the front row as they lashed out with feet and fists. The fight showed no sign of ending; as some people tired, others took their place, striking and sliding around on the blood-waxed floor.
    An explosive crack rang out in the hall, echoing over the high-pitched squeal in my ears, and the fight was over. The police officer who had paid me a quarter to prove I was alive stood by the back doors of the hall where Gary had stood just a few hours earlier, but in place of an air horn, the officer held a gun, drawn and trained on the crowd.
    “Break it up,” the officer shouted.
    The majority of the crowd dispersed slowly from the ring of blood, away from the nucleus of carnage, and the heap of seemingly lifeless bodies. A few people remained by the piano, covered in blood and unidentifiable save for their clothes. Gary was on his knees, trying to lift Powell up and over Sean, but