Jonathan Maberry - Dead of Night

Blair took a breath. “I understand your concerns, Mr. President, but our scientific advisors are in a panic over this. They are urging us to implement Red Wall. Urging , sir.”

“I understand,” said the president wearily, “I’ve ordered the choppers in. Once they’re over Stebbins airspace, we’ll see where we are.”

“Thank you, Mr. President.”

Dez Fox looked out at a sea of faces. Hundreds of them, young and old. More young than old. All turned toward the open doors, their faces pale with fear and their eyes bright with hope.

They must have heard the gunshots , Dez thought. God … look at all the little ones. In here. Thinking they’re safe.

She wanted to find the two teachers JT had left to guard the door. Find them and kick the living shit out of them for abandoning their posts, and for abandoning these kids.

She felt JT and Trout move up to flank her, filling the doorway.

The kids looked at them and at the guns they carried, and at the uniforms they wore. Suddenly, and all together, they jumped to their feet, screaming and applauding. Dez felt her lips part into a silent “oh” of surprise. She turned to JT in confusion.

Trout leaned close and whispered in her ear. “They’re applauding because the cavalry has just arrived.”

“But,” she said, “but … we’re not…”

“Smile and wave, Dez. That’s what they’re looking for. Smile and wave. Be the hero. Let them know you’re here for them. After all, it’s the truth, right? So let them know it. Let them know that you’re here for them, to protect them, and that you won’t abandon them. That you won’t let the monsters get them.”

Dez looked into Trout’s eyes for a long time even as the applause rolled like thunder around the big hall. She looked for the mockery, the joke in his eyes. And she did not find it.

She slowly raised her pistol over her head and forced a smile onto her face.

The applause rose in intensity. Teachers and parents made their way through the sea of kids, and they shook Dez’s hand, and Billy’s, and even JT’s.

“Are we getting out now?” asked a woman who held a two-month-old baby in her arms.

“Soon,” Dez lied. “The … um, National Guard is still clearing things up outside. We have to sit tight for a bit. Might be a few hours, might be all night, but help is on the way. They need us to cooperate as best we can.”

Her use of key words like “National Guard” and “they” worked their magic. They promised order and answers.

A woman — the stick-thin school principal, Mrs. Madison — came hurrying through the crowd and gave Dez a fierce hug. That got applause, too. The crowd gradually settled down as teachers and some adults quieted the sections near them. It looked orderly, and Dez guessed that Mrs. Madison had appointed these adults as section leaders. Good call.

“Thank you,” said Mrs. Madison. “God, thank you. Do we know what’s happening?

Dez held up her hands to stop the flow of questions. Then she gently pulled Mrs. Madison into the hall and away from the other adults. “Listen, we don’t have a lot of time, so please pay attention. We’re not leading a cavalry charge right here. And the National Guard are not our friends at the moment. They think we’re all infected in here, and until we clear the real infected out of here we can’t prove that it’s safe for the Guard to come in and rescue us. That means we have to make sure that anyone who’s been bitten is secured.”

Mrs. Madison frowned. “Secured?”

Dez gave her a brief explanation of Lucifer 113 and how it worked. “Anyone who has been contaminated — no matter how, and no matter if they don’t look sick yet — will become like those things out there. Everyone who has this thing is going to have to be put down.”

Mrs. Madison blanched. “Officer Fox … we have kids with bites. Surely you can’t expect us to shoot children? That’s insane. It’s inhuman. We have them in classrooms. We’re giving them medical attention…”

“Then give me an alternative. If we allow the infection to stay inside the school we’ll all die. This is easy math.”

“God…”

“JT and I will take care of it,” snapped Dez. “Mrs. Madison, I need you to stay inside the auditorium. Once we leave, keep the doors locked until either JT or I tell you it’s safe to open the doors. Otherwise you do not open up to anyone, understood?”

The principal nodded. “Mr. Chestnut is somewhere in the building. He heard some sounds and he took two of the janitors with him to investigate.”

“Lucas Chestnut?” Dez asked. Chestnut had been a very young teacher when she had attended the school. He must be well into middle age by now. “How long ago?”

“Why, he left just after Sergeant Hammond did. I’m surprised you didn’t see him.”

“Shit,” said Dez. Mrs. Madison began to say something but didn’t; instead she sagged back with a hand to her throat.

“Stay here and don’t let anyone else leave,” ordered JT. “You understand me? No one. Now — go back inside and put a smile on your face and tell everyone to sit and wait until we get back. Don’t tell anyone else how things really are. Not yet. Got it?”

The principal nodded, and JT led Dez out into the hallway. They listened at the open stairwell but heard nothing. “Let’s try the top floor,” said JT. “It needs to be checked anyway.”

Dez looked up at him. “You be careful, Hoss. No heroics.”

He snorted. “I’m fresh out of heroics, girl.”

They smiled at one another and were about to enter the stairwell when Trout came running out of the auditorium.

“Hey! Dez!”

She wheeled on him. “Where the hell do you think you’re going?”

“With you. But I need a gun.”

“Not a chance, Billy. Stay here with the kids. I don’t trust you.”

“What? How the hell can you say—”

“With a gun, dumb-ass. You don’t know how to shoot, remember? Go find a baseball bat or something and stay the hell in there.”

“Dez, I—”

She got up in his face, and though her mouth was hard, her eyes were pleading. “Billy … stay with the kids. Please. ”

“Ah … fuck,” he said, but he nodded. “Okay, Dez.”

There was a brief look of relief in her eyes as she turned away and hurried down the hall with JT. For just a moment, and despite all of his conscious reasoning to the contrary, it felt to Trout that Dez was not running off to a fight, but that she was running away from him. It made no sense, but it opened a little door of insight in his head.

He turned away and Dez watched as the auditorium doors closed behind him.

Dez watched him go and she had to smile. At his willingness to help. At the courage he’d shown in coming back to town. At his ass. He had a great ass, she decided. She sighed and turned away, aware that the members of her “team” were watching her.

JT murmured, “I thought you were done with that boy.”

“I am.”

“Doesn’t look like it to me.”

“Yeah, well I thought you didn’t walk with a limp,” Dez said.

“I don’t.”

She got up in his face. “Want that to change?”

“Um … no, I don’t.”

Dez nodded. “All right then, end of discussion.”

If JT planned to say more it was cut short by a piercing scream of terrible pain that floated on the sluggish air from the darkened stairwell.

Homer Gibbon heard the sound before he saw them. It was a big, deep, bass sound that filtered through the rain and the radio and the sound of his wipers. The throp-throp-throp of helicopter rotors. He pulled to the side of the road, rolled down his window, and leaned out to look.