LAS VEGAS — It was different in the light of day.
There was no “pop, pop, pop” of gunfire, no screams. Just a quiet lot of cars abandoned by those, like Kassidy Owen, who escaped with their lives.
“It’s strange to hear the silence,” Owen said, “because all I remember was the noise.”
The 22-year-old was one of dozens of concertgoers who returned to the scene of the Route 91 Harvest festival on Wednesday morning to fetch the vehicles they left behind as they fled from a gunman raining down bullets from high above in the tower of the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino across the street.
Survivors of the deadly mass shooting in Las Vegas on Sunday needed their cars to move on with their lives -- to get back to work, to school, home. It was the first time they were returning to a scene that would forever change them, when joy and celebration and music turned into killing and horror.
Before they could move forward, they had to go back to the place where they thought they were going to die.
Owen had run to her car to hide and had tried to drive away, but she couldn’t. People were running, bodies dropped to the ground, and cars bottlenecked in the parking lot. During a brief pause after more than 10 minutes of gunfire, she worried the lights of her SUV made everyone inside a shining target.
“They’re shooting again!” her best friend’s brother screamed. “Turn off the car!”
That’s when she got out and fled.
“I just remember shutting the door and running,” Owen said.
Now, nearly three days later, she was back, sitting in the driver’s seat of her SUV. Her eyes were swollen and red. This was a long way from over.
“You just keep hearing the gunshots in your head,” Owen said.
8. Why did Kassidy Owen return to the scene of terror?
A.To get back her car for daily life. | B.To show sympathy to the victims. |
C.To search for her missing friends. | D.To look into the cause of the shooting. |
9. Which of the following can replace the underlined word “bottlenecked” in Paragraph 7?
A.abandoned | B.jammed |
C.stopped | D.left |
10. Why did Owen keep hearing the gunshots in her head?
A.Because she had escaped being caught. |
B.Because she wanted to find the gunman. |
C.Because she couldn’t rid herself of those terrible scenes. |
D.Because she had saved others’ lives by turning off the car. |
11. What is the best title of the passage?
A.Going back to where they would die | B.Owen’s experience in Las Vegas |
C.How to survive in a mass shooting | D.Return to the unforgettable scene |