Directly in front of them a pickup truck had run a stop sign, not even slowing, skidded to make the turn, fishtailing, and slammed into a car headed the other way. Craig dodged the wreck, adroitly hitting the gas to regain control, and narrowly missed a man running down the middle of the street in the direction of the school. Then he sped up again.
She looked back at the pad.
“Back to our network headquarters in New York…"
There was a pause for what seemed like an eternity. The network had already created a logo, “America Under Attack.”
The logo snapped off, replaced by the familiar, comforting anchor for the network’s mid-afternoon programming. It was obvious, though, that he was struggling for the composure to convey calm, particularly after the hysterical report of one of their reporters minutes earlier claimed that attacks against schools were spreading across the nation.
He identified himself then pressed straight in:
“We have received reports from affiliates across the nation that numerous schools are under some form of attack. However, I can state clearly that only five of these have been confirmed and identified as ongoing attacks, contrary to some reports from this network.”
It was obvious he was furious over the hysterical report of minutes earlier claiming mass attacks across the country.
“The names of the schools which we have confirmed are under attack are listed at the bottom of your screen. Even if your child is in one of those schools, government officials implore you not to go there until the situation is under control. If your child’s school is not on this list, please remain at home and off the highways.
Kathy felt hesitation and looked over at Craig. His jaw line set as he swerved around a three-car accident at the next intersection.
“We’re going,” he confirmed, and she nodded, saying nothing.
“A new dimension to this day is now unfolding. Reports are starting to come in that while police attention across the nation has been focused on securing our schools, attacks have spread to our interstate highway system. So far over two dozen affiliates are reporting drive-by shootings on interstate highways. There is no discernible pattern to the locations of these attacks. Many of these attacks are taking place hundreds of miles away from any of the schools that we know are under siege.
“The nature of the highway attacks is identical to reports we broadcasted back in the spring when the terrorist army of ISIS moved into northern Iraq.”
As he spoke a box taking up half of the screen flashed on, time stamped from early June and filmed from the interior of a car, of barrels of AK-47s stuck out of side windows and Middle Eastern music playing. The murderers were shouting and laughing as they drove up alongside an orange car, and then a hail of gunfire poured into it. The car swerved off the road, accompanied by laughter and shouts of glee and cries of “Allahu akbar!” as the orange car, riddled with bullet holes, crashed.
“We have footage of such attacks from our affiliate in Austin, Texas, and from Knoxville, Tennessee, taken by news helicopters.”
The box showing the first attack was replaced by two smaller ones, video shot from helicopters, showing a massive conflagration on Interstate 40 filmed just east of Knoxville, Tennessee, engulfing both sides of the highway, dozens of cars piled up. The second small-screen footage was of a vehicle pursued by four or five police cars, passing a white sedan, gunfire striking the sedan which then swerved and slammed into the pillar of an overpass.
The screen returned to full size.
“Even as I am speaking to you, my producer is telling me that more footage is coming in from Daytona, Florida, and Dover, Delaware, of similar attacks.”
He paused and it was obvious he was not acting for dramatic effect. His voice was trembling, near to breaking.
“In light of what we are now seeing, I must personally say that America is facing a coordinated attack by a foreign enemy. There is no hard evidence yet, but I will lay my career on the line with this, that we are facing the long-anticipated and publicly announced attack that ISIS has been threatening us with for months. It is either ISIS or a radical group associated with them. This horrific attack bears the markings of mass murderers without regard for any concept of civilized behavior.
“I therefore appeal to all of you to do two things. First, pray to God that this scourge shall speedily pass away.”
That shocked Kathy. His words were both Lincolnesque but also unheard of in this current age. A reporter asking his listeners to appeal to God? An ironic thought that even now, within minutes, the network would probably be flooded with text messages and phone calls demanding that the reporter be fired for “jamming” his religious views down the throats of his audience and that he make an on-air apology for it.
“And second, I appeal to you that if you are on the road, trying to reach your children in schools, please, pull over, stop, and take a deep breath.”
He paused, obviously welling up.
“I cannot leave here to try to reach my kids, though every fiber of my being as a father is screaming at me to do so.”
He paused, lowering his head for a moment. In television, even a few seconds of silence felt like an eternity and it was a good ten seconds before he regained his composure to face the camera again.
“We need to take a break…” was all he could now muster.
Kathy looked at Craig, for a moment filled with doubt about what they were doing.
“We aren’t going any further,” he announced. She wondered if he was indeed abandoning their quest and was ready to turn about. If so, she would tell him to stop, get out and run the rest of the way. Their school, her daughter’s school, her husband’s school, was confirmed as being under attack. It was not a rumor, it was not a fear, it was confirmed and she had to be there.
Craig skidded to a stop and she looked up again. It was not that he was giving up. They were still a quarter mile out from Chamberlain Middle, but the road ahead was jammed bumper-to-bumper, red taillights glowing, frantic parents getting out of their cars, abandoning them in the traffic jam, deciding to run toward the chaos. Ambulances and police cars were driving across lawns and walkways, sirens wailing. It was a cacophony of madness.
She got out of the car, a bit startled when Craig actually grabbed her shoulder.
“Come on!” he cried, and she started to run with him. She felt as if her heart were about to burst, for in the distance she could hear the repetitive bursts of gunfire.
Her husband, her daughter were in the deepest circle of hell.
Inside Joshua Chamberlain Middle School
The gunfire ceased in the room across the hall; Bob could hear muffled child-voiced moans and cries, heartbreaking, so many calls for “mommy” as they died. Mommy, who, when they were at the arrogant age of twelve and thirteen, was a source of embarrassment and eye rolling when an attempt was made to kiss and hug them in public, but in a moment of terror, of pain, of dying? It was a cry to a mother for comfort, to hold them and to ease the pain as they died, and it steeled Bob for what he had to do. He was so shocked by the anguish of it all that he first had to wipe tears from his eyes, silently cursing himself for his moment of frozen inaction and fear.
How could any man, any human being inflict such suffering upon children? He could hear the triumphal calls to their Allah echoing down the hallway and it filled him with rage and now the motivation to move aggressively and fight back. All the years of political correctness, all the appeals from the nation’s leaders to extend a hand of friendship to all… If really true, where was the righteous anger now? In the same way Christians by the tens of thousands rose up in anger against the evils of the Westboro Church that harassed the families of dead soldiers returning home in caskets from the Middle East, and taunted gays and anyone who was different?
He had enough of an interest in history to recall, even in these few seconds, Winston Churchill’s sarcastic response and warnings against the appeasement of his nation’s leader in 1938 and the ter
rible price it would eventually cost Great Britain and the free world.
And that price had now come due again, literally in the corridors of his school, his daughter’s school, and he was at the very tip of the spear of that price. And now he prayed that in the next few seconds he could do something, anything, to slow them down, to buy time and, if need be, to die, to die well doing what was right.
He checked on Patty, who was guiding her charges up and out of the shattered window, encouraging each to run the moment they hit the ground. To his horror, he saw two of them drop, caught in the gunfire raging outside the building, but the others were making it through. It did not take a trained expert to know that a moving target was infinitely harder to hit than one cowering in a corner or lying prone on the floor. If some of them were getting through, it was better than waiting here for certain death.
Patty’s gaze caught his eye as she helped the last child up to the window before climbing out herself. She was crying, staring straight at him.
“God be with you, Bob,” she mouthed the words, nearly silent, then turned to drop out the window behind the last of her children.
There were six more classrooms down the long hall beyond the one he was holed up in, plus the room across the hallway where the murderer was finishing off the last of his victims. He prayed that the teachers in those rooms had followed Patty’s lead, but knew they had not. One was Margaret Redding’s classroom. Last he had seen her, she was cowering in the faculty lounge, her teaching assistant left in charge of the classroom. That poor, harried elderly woman was afraid of her own shadow and would follow every order by Margaret, which would include ordering the children to lie down as sheep and await slaughter.
He saw no other children sprinting across the playground. There was no view to the other side of the building but he had to assume that far too many classrooms still had victims waiting for their executioner, who would call out to his alleged god as he put a 9mm bullet into the head of each child before moving on to the next room. He could hear the sirens outside, the thumping of at least one helicopter which he hoped would bring succor. He did not know that it was a news helicopter filming and transmitting the insanity rather than a SWAT team, which, in reality, was still forming up in downtown Portland and not yet in the air.
The shooting and screams in the room across the hallway stopped. The fire alarm was still wailing its incessant numbing shriek, sprinklers continuing to douse the corridor. He was down flat on the floor at the doorway, pistol raised, aimed at the open doorway across the hall. He kept going over in his head the training he had received for the concealed permit: breathe in, half exhale, aim and squeeze… breathe in, half exhale. But it did not still the hyperventilation of fear and nervousness. Three bullets, I've got three bullets. He has hundreds. Breathe, half exhale. Hail Mary, full of grace…
He started to pray, though it had been years since he last attended mass, on the day he and Kathy married.
A tall, dark shadow appeared in the doorway across the hall.
Now!
He squeezed off two rounds, aimed straight at the chest, the center of the body. The shadow staggered backwards for a moment but then just came forward toward the doorway where Bob was waiting. A flash moment of terror. What in hell was this, the “Terminator,” indestructible? The murderer’s weapon lowered, aimed straight at him. He saw the muzzle flash, a terrible shock struck him in the back. His lower body went numb.
Armor, he has body armor! Bob was in that instant inwardly amazed that he could recognize such a thing as he looked up, saw his opponent drawing closer, weapon at the shoulder, aiming down to deliver a killing shot to his head before moving on to murder more children.
Bob pointed his pistol straight up and squeezed off the last round, his bullet striking his foe just below the left eye, killing him instantly, so that the jihadist staggered backwards and collapsed into the room where he had been so gleefully slaughtering the defenseless but seconds earlier.
Bob laid in shock for long seconds, empty pistol aimed at the recumbent body across the school corridor, the legs of his enemy twitching spasmodically for several seconds before going still. He kept the pistol aimed at him, not yet registering that the slide of his pistol was fully back, indicating his weapon was empty. When he did realize it, there was a brief thought to look about on the floor for the single unfired cartridge he had ejected earlier. The floor around him was slick with blood. It was not registering yet that it was his own blood commingled with the blood of his enemy from his first shot to the jaw.
There was silence in the building except for the wailing cry of the fire alarm. Was there any way to turn that damn thing off? he wondered. Sprinklers in the hallway were still spraying out a mist of water, diluting the rivulets of blood seeping out of the scores of children, the principal, and the two teachers lying dead in the corridor.
More firing, thundering loud from down by the administrative area. He dared to peek out from the cover of the doorway. No jihadist was in sight but there was someone firing from that area, while from outside the building he heard sirens and what sounded like more gunfire.
A shadow, a dark face covered with a ski mask, appeared at the end of the hallway, shouting something that he assumed was Arabic. A query, an order? Another call. A sparkle-like effect appeared on the wall above him. Bullets fired from outside were impacting above the killer. The face disappeared and a couple of seconds later there was a sustained burst of automatic fire in reply.
Bob continued to look down the corridor. Was that the pathetic looking body of Mr. Carl in the middle of the hallway, blank eyes staring at him with warning, reproach, or orders to keep going, to keep fighting back?
He had seen three killers storming his building. Three against five hundred and thirty children and thirty-seven adults. He had without doubt dropped one of the killers, but that meant that two remained.
Chechnya. This was not some random act of madness. This was a well-planned attack by jihadists. Their mission was to kill as many defenseless innocents as possible before they themselves were taken to paradise. They were remorseless murderers. There would be no negotiating, for negotiating simply bought time to inflict more killing. He recalled a discussion on a news channel, a commentator who was bitterly denounced by various “friendship with Islam” organizations afterwards quoting their Koran, that ultimately negotiations with infidels were simply a ploy until true believers gained control and then the infidels were to submit or die. All bargaining was a sham, for each bargain would be a step backwards. The only way he could bargain now was to somehow get a weapon and continue to fight back.
Two killers still at large in his school and he had an empty gun. A complete sense of impotence overwhelmed him for a moment. At least his daughter’s class had gotten out. Wendy? He did not even know if she had made it through the kill zone or not and the thought of that filled him with rage.
Bastards. Damn cowardly bastards. Target us, the adults in the Trade Center and the Pentagon. But this was a step beneath the gutter of all of humanity. They had brought their hell to Chamberlain Middle School near Portland, Maine.
Chamberlain. Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain. How few knew that their school was actually named after a hero of the Civil War, a holder of the Medal of Honor for his gallantry and leadership at Gettysburg. There was supposed to be a ritual each year to honor his memory but few paid attention when it was held and many grumbled that it took time out from the pressing need to prepare the students for the next battery of mandatory testing.
Taking time to honor some dead guy of a hundred and fifty years ago? There were other things far more important.
He had a memory of reading about Chamberlain, how when his regiment was out of ammunition, facing five times their number charging up the hill that they were ordered to hold at all costs, he had come to what was the only logical conclusion. He had ordered his men to fix bayonets and charge.
The terrifying reality that the shot put into his back had paralyzed
him was beginning to sink in. Charging was out. But less than twenty feet away there was at least one gun and plenty of ammunition.
He could still block this corridor against the other murderers for a few more precious minutes until help arrived.
He started to drag his body across the water-and-blood-soaked hallway. And then the pain hit, agonizing, terrifying. He could see Mr. Carl, his sightless eyes staring at him. In spite of the shrieking of the fire alarm, the spray of water cascading down, he could hear the gunfire, the sound of hot shell casings ejecting onto the checkerboard flooring by the foyer, and more distant firing coming from the other wing of the school. With his gaze fixed down the corridor, he continued to crawl, foot by agonizing foot, toward the man he had just killed, who still held in his blood-stained hands the means to salvation, for at least a few more minutes.
A distant shadowed face appeared again at the end of the corridor, staring straight at him. To Bob, his eyes looked to be the eyes of Satan incarnate on earth, remorseless and cold as a serpent’s… The killer aimed his weapon.
CHAPTER SIX
As she ran, Kathy's phone beeped yet again. Still not Bob; it was a text message from Mary Browning: “Please talk, please!”
She ignored the appeal for the moment. There was a line of flashing blue lights ahead, a crowd shouting, arguing with two police officers who were announcing over and over that no one could approach the building. And then, as if to add emphasis to their argument, there was a sustained burst of firing from within the school, which was visible only a few hundred yards farther down the road. A woman close to one of the officers staggered, clutching her stomach, that officer going down as well, and the side window of a patrol car shattered.
That set off a panicked run of a hundred or more back toward Kathy. Swept up in the crowd, she was pushed backwards. She managed to break free of the stampede of frightened parents as the road reached an intersection. A patrol car had just pulled up to the intersection, the officer got out with a bullhorn raised, shouting that an emergency waiting area had been established just up the road, and aggressively motioned the crowd to turn and get out of the line of fire. Up a side street she saw a small crowd in front of a Catholic church where someone else was announcing on a megaphone that it was a gathering place for parents. Kathy, with Craig by her side, followed the crowd. An elderly police officer was outside urging parents to get into the church which was being set up as an official waiting area. A priest stood by the open door of the church’s recreation hall.
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