JT Hammond crawled slowly to the wall, shedding debris and leaving a trail of bloody hand and knee prints. He grabbed the shattered sill and pulled himself up.
The two Black Hawks pulled back from the building. Beneath them the dead were massing into a huge crowd. The sound of the gunfire and the voice from the speakers drew them from every part of the parking lot. Thousands of bone white hands reached for the birds, thousands of mouths moaned and bit the air.
As the first two Black Hawks moved away, their machine-gun barrels trailing smoke, the other two flew out over the crowds of the living dead.
The cries of the dead rose into the cold drizzle of midnight.
“Is it over?” Dez asked again.
“No,” he said.
The guns swiveled up toward the window.
Then there was a mechanical squawk behind them. Dez and JT turned and looked down. The walkie-talkie lay there.
“… icer Desdemona Fox, please respond. Officer Desdemona Fox, please respond…” The call repeated and repeated. Dez did not recognize the voice.
“Well,” said Dez, “ain’t that interesting as shit?”
JT laughed. He turned around and slid down to sit with his back to the wall.
Dez climbed painfully to her feet and tottered over to where the communicator lay amid the rubble. She bent over with a groan and picked it up, keyed the Send button and spoke.
“This is Fox.”
“Desdemona Fox?”
“No, it’s Michael J., asshole.”
“Please verify your badge number and the last four digits of your social security number.”
After a moment’s hesitation, Dez complied.
The voice said, “Confirmed. Thank you, Officer Fox. Please hold the line.”
“Is this some kind of trick?” asked JT, but Dez didn’t reply.
Another voice spoke, one she hadn’t heard before. “Officer Fox?”
“This is Fox. Who’s this?”
“This is Major General Simeon Zetter, commander of the Pennsylvania Army National Guard.”
A day ago she would have been impressed to the point of speechlessness. A lot had changed since then. “What can I do for you, General?”
“Is Mr. Trout with you?”
“He’s in the building. Why?”
“His videos have gotten quite a bit of attention.”
“Kind of the point, general. We’ve got more ready to roll.”
“No doubt; however, before you broadcast them I want you both to listen to me,” said Zetter. “I’m speaking frankly to you and I want to appeal to your integrity and your patriotism.”
“Save the recruiting speech,” barked Dez. “We’ve been playing fair. You fuckers haven’t.”
“Dez,” JT said softly.
Zetter said, “I understand your feelings, Officer Fox. I doubt apologies would carry much weight right now.”
“Not much, no.”
“I have just taken tactical command of this situation.”
“What happened to Dietrich?”
“He’s been relieved of his duties, Officer Fox. I am speaking to you now on the direct orders and behalf of the President of the United States.”
“I didn’t vote for him,” she said, just to be pissy.
“That doesn’t make him any less your president or any less my boss,” said Zetter. “I give you my personal word, for whatever you think that’s worth, that we are willing to listen to what you have to say.”
“That’s not enough, general,” she fired back. “I’m looking out the window at a bunch of gunships. If we hadn’t posted those videos we’d be dead right about now.”
“Yes,” agreed the general, “you would. And I make no apology for that. We are facing a terrible crisis and the nature of it has forced us to make some very hard choices.”
“Like slaughtering an entire town?”
The general paused only a moment, Dez had to give him that. “Yes,” he said. “As horrible, tragic, and regrettable as that is. The disease pathogen at large in Stebbins has no equal on earth. Though it will sound harsh to say it, I believe that it is because of God’s mercy that we had this hurricane, because without it the plague would doubtless have spread much farther than it has. That is not a fatuous comment, Officer Fox, and it is not as heartless as it sounds.”
“I’m sure we’re all touched by your concern.”
“The president wants me to assure you that everything that should and must be done will be done to bring those responsible for this disaster to justice.”
“That doesn’t do much for the people of Stebbins, General. And it doesn’t do much for the kids here in the school. I want to know what you’re going to do to resolve this situation.”
“The simple truth is that the best and safest way to protect the entire country would be to carpet bomb Stebbins with thermobaric weapons. That plan was approved prior to the posting of your second video.”
“That’s what you have in the Apaches?”
“Yes.”
“And now…?”
“Now this has become a different matter. Even as we speak the entire country is raising its voice in protest. Stebbins is on everyone’s tongue. The White House switchboard has been totally jammed for two hours. No one is talking about anything else.”
“So … does that mean you’re going to get us the hell out of here?”
“We are discussing options on how to do that,” said Zetter. “I need to know that you understand how serious this is.”
“We’re trapped in a school surrounded by zombies, General. Yeah, we get how fucking serious it is.”
“Then tell me … if you were in my shoes, knowing what you know about this disease, what would you do?”
“Nice try,” said Dez, “but I’m not a general, a scientist, or the president. We want you to solve this.”
“We can’t. The best we can do is either eradicate it or wait it out. The thermobaric option has a ninety-three percent estimated chance of success.”
“What are the odds on quarantine?”
“To be frank, fifty-fifty at best. I advised the president that it is a gamble not worth taking. I stand by my comment. If one infected person breaks quarantine then we are likely to be facing an apocalyptic plague. Those words are chosen with precision, Officer Fox. This would be a biological apocalypse.”
“Okay,” Dez said tersely, “So why are we talking? I’m still looking out the window at rockets and miniguns.”
“My scouts said that the back door of the school was open for a significant length of time, and they reported gunfire from inside the school. That suggests that some of the infected are inside the school.”
“All of the living dead have been taken care of,” said Dez.
“What about people with bites or exposure to the black blood? Do you know what that is?”
“Yes.”
“Anyone who has had contact with that is likely to be infected, even if they are not yet showing signs.”
“We have a few bite victims, but they’ve been quarantined in locked rooms. Everyone in the auditorium is uninfected.”
“That’s not good enough, Officer Fox. If you want us to help you, then you need to help us. There can’t be a single infected person in that building. There can’t be a single suspected case. Not one. Are we clear on that?”
Dez looked at JT, who was sitting with his head in his hands.
“Christ,” he said, “he’s talking about kids and friends of ours and—”
“JT,” she whispered, “what choice do we have?”
He shook his head. “You’re killing me here, Dez.”
Into the walkie-talkie she said, “We’ll do what has to be done.”
“Send the infected out of the building,” said the general.
“Are you going to quarantine them? Are you going to take them to a secure medical facility?”
Zetter paused. “I’m sorry, Officer Fox, but that is not possible. Not with this plague.”
Dez closed her eyes.
“And what about us?” she asked hoarsely.
“You will be under quarantine for an indefinite period. We are trying to determine the absolute outside range of the parasite’s life cycle. That means that you survivors are a community in there. We’ll air-drop food, weapons, medical supplies, hazmat suits, and other materials. None of my people will enter the building. Anyone who leaves the building before the quarantine is lifted will be terminated. No exceptions. That order comes down from the president of the United States, Officer Fox.”
“What about the rest of Stebbins? There may still be people out there … pockets of resistance?”
The general sighed. “Officer Fox … there is no ‘rest of Stebbins.’ Not anymore.”
Dez almost threw the walkie-talkie out of the window. Instead she walked over and sat down next to JT.
“Okay,” she said into the mike. “And goddamn you all to hell.”
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED ONE
STEBBINS LITTLE SCHOOL
Billy Trout was covered in blood. Some of it was his; a lot of it belonged to the children in the hall. After the shooting stopped, he and the other adults swarmed through the hall, coaxing children out from under chairs, herding them and carrying others onto the stage and into the dressing rooms and greenroom backstage. It disturbed Trout that so few of the children were crying. Right now even hysterical screams would be more normal than the drawn faces and empty eyes of these kids. He had seen this kind of thing before, mostly in newsreel footage and photos of children in Iraq and Afghanistan, in Somalia and Chechnya, in war-ravaged places around the globe. The hollow stares of hollow children who have been emotionally and psychologically gutted by fear, horror, and the betrayal or abandonment of those who were supposed to be there to protect them.
The only relief, and it was a small one, is that there were no casualties. Despite injuries, some serious, to everyone in the room, no one had been killed. In Trout’s view, as far as miracles went this one was kind of left-handed.