The first shots were fired at Just-In-Time Recreation, a bowling alley in Lewiston, Maine, formerly known as Sparetime.

"None of this seems real, but unfortunately it is," the owners of the bowling alley said in a statement. "We are devastated for our community and our staff. We lost some amazing and wholehearted people from our bowling family and community last night. There are no words to fix this or make it better. We are praying for everyone who has been affected by this horrific tragedy. We love you all and hold you close in our hearts."

Minutes after the massacre at the bowling alley, the mass shooting continued at the nearby Schemengees Bar & Grille Restaurant.

"My heart is crushed. I am at a loss for words. In a split second your world gets turn upside down for no good reason," a statement from Schemengees said. "We [lost] great people in this community. How can we make any sense of this. Sending out prayers to everyone."

Three people are in critical condition and five others are in stable condition on Thursday morning in the wake of Wednesday night's mass shooting, according to Dr. John Alexander, chief medical officer at Central Maine Health Care.

Two patients have been transported to other hospitals and two others have been discharged, he said.

Alexander praised the work of the hospital staffers who jumped in to help. He said about 100 off-duty team members volunteered.

-ABC News' Alex Faul

At 6:56 p.m. Wednesday, emergency dispatchers began to receive 911 calls detailing a male shooting at Just-In-Time Recreation, a bowling alley in Lewiston, Maine, formerly known as Sparetime, State Police Col. William Ross told reporters during a news conference.

At 7:08 p.m., law enforcement received reports of an active shooter inside the billiards room at the Schemengees Bar & Grille Restaurant in Lewiston, about 4 miles south of the bowling alley, Ross said.

Click here to read more.

The FBI is offering SWAT teams to assist with the manhunt and is also making available behavioral scientists who can help assess how the suspect, Robert Card, might behave in the coming hours, multiple law enforcement officials told ABC News.

U.S. Marshals are also assisting in the search for card, sources said.

Agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives are running down potential gun purchases by the suspect, sources said.

-ABC News' Pierre Thomas

At least 16 people are believed to be dead, though that number is in flux, and dozens more have been injured after a bowling alley came under fire in Lewiston, Maine, Wednesday evening -- the deadliest shooting of the year and one of the deadliest in recent decades.

Riley Dumont said she heard a loud bang after which her father, a retired cop, corralled them into a corner and put protection in front of them including "tables and a big bench that the kids were hiding behind."

“I was laying on top of my daughter. My mother was laying on top of me,” said Dumont. "It felt like it lasted a lifetime," she added. "I just remember people sobbing and crying."

Another witness at the bowling alley, whose name is Brandon, but whose last name was not made available, described hearing a "loud pop."

"Thought it was a balloon," Brandon said. "I had my back turned to the door. As soon as I turned and saw that it was not a balloon, he was holding a weapon. I just bucked it down the lane and I slid basically into where the pins are and climbed up to the machine and was on top of the machines for about 10 minutes until the cops got there."

Meghan Hutchinson, another shooting witness, said, "We were very scared and we didn't know, like, we didn't know what to do, what to expect from this. You know, nothing like this has ever happened here before. We barricaded in there and another parent was in the room with me. She had a phone and she called 911."

Zoe Levesque, 10, was grazed by a bullet.

“I never thought I'd grow up and get a bullet in my leg," said Levesque. "Like, why do people do this? I was more worried about, like, am I going to live and going to make it out of here? Like, what's going to happen? Are the cops going to come?"