CHAPTER EIGHTY-NINE
“Are you sure this will work?” asked JT as Trout set up the satellite equipment.
“Goat said it would, and he knows this stuff pretty well,” said Trout. “I’m no damn good at all in a fight. I do this or I go hide in a closet.” He handed the unit to JT and showed him how to work it, then he stepped away and ran his fingers through his wet hair and straightened his soaked shirt. “How do I look?”
“Like a drowned golden retriever,” said Dez.
“Thanks.”
“But a good-looking drowned golden retriever,” she said, giving him a small, crooked grin.
Trout flashed her a brilliant smile. “That’s probably the nicest thing you’ve said to me in two years.”
He expected her to smile at that, instead he saw a flicker of pain dart through her eyes; and he felt like an ass for making a bad joke at a time like this. He busied himself with clipping the lavaliere mike to his shirt collar.
“Ready,” he said.
JT held up crossed fingers. Dez merely nodded, her expression on the doubtful side of neutral. Trout cleared his throat and gave JT the nod to start recording.
“My name is Billy Trout,” Trout began. “I’m a reporter for Regional Satellite News in Stebbins County. Please watch this video. This is not a hoax, this is not special effects or a gag. This is real. People are dying and more will die. There’s a good chance I’m going to die. Maybe today.”
Trout paused and took a breath. He was sweating and used his fingers to wipe the sweat out of his eye sockets. From behind JT, Dez gave Trout a thumbs-up, and he plunged ahead.
“If you’ve been watching the news you know that the big storm is centered over southwestern Pennsylvania right now. You may also have heard of some problems here in Stebbins. Rioting and looting. However, I am here to state for the record that there is no rioting in Stebbins. There is no looting. However a lot of people are dying here. I am going to tell you the truth about what is happening here in Stebbins. If I live through this, I’ll probably go to jail. That’s okay, as long as the story gets out. Please watch this video. Please post it on YouTube. Put the links on Twitter and Facebook and everywhere else you can think of.
“I am in the Stebbins Little School, the elementary school here in town. There are eight hundred people in here with me. More than half of them are children. A lot of people have died here today, but unless we all work together, a lot
He took a breath. His hands were shaking.
“This is Billy Trout, reporting live from the apocalypse…”
CHAPTER NINETY
It seemed to take forever, but the call finally came through on Goat’s Skype account. Routing it through the main RSN satellite was a firing offense and almost certainly illegal. Fuck it. So was turning people into zombies.
Trout sent him three videos. One was for immediate release, the other two were to sit in their chambers until Billy told him to pull the trigger.
Goat used his earphones so no one else could hear the call, and he set Skype to record everything as a backup to the straight satellite feed, which was automatically recorded on the RSN server, which was in Pittsburgh not Stebbins. Goat copied the whole thing on his hard drive, too. Then, as soon as it was done, he e-mailed it to himself at three different accounts. That would give him copies in his sent folder as well as the three in-boxes. All of this took a few seconds and now there were copies in places the government could not easily block, access, or confiscate.
After the broadcast was done, Goat got a private Skype call from Trout.
“Did you get them?”
“Yes I did, Billy, and I’m sweating high-caliber bullets right now. Tell me this is all true. The National Guard’s actually shooting people?”
“They’re shooting everyone.”
“Aren’t they testing them first?”
“No.”
“Then how do they know who’s infected or—”
“Goat — they’re shooting
“Oh, man…” Goat felt the room beginning to spin. “How safe are you going to be in that school?”
Trout was a long time answering.
“Billy?”
“You got to get this out. Listen, kid, this is a million times worse than anything Volker said it would be. Goat … everyone’s dead. Marcia, Gino … everyone.”
“Marcia…?” Goat asked hollowly.
Trout told him what he’d seen and done … and been forced to do. When he described the encounter with Marcia, Trout broke into tears.
“Oh, shit, man…” said Goat in a voice choked with his own tears. He looked around the Starbucks, but the place was so deserted that there was no one near, no one to see or hear. “Those
“I have no intention of letting them skate, kid. We’re going to ram this up their asses.”
Goat wiped his eyes and nose on his sleeve. “What do you want me to do?”
CHAPTER NINETY-ONE
“Watch out!” yelled Trout, and Dez whirled around as a zombie came at her from the shadows of the top landing. Dez fired three shots, one to the chest and two to the head, and the dead woman spun into the wall, then slid bonelessly to the floor.
“I don’t know her,” murmured Trout. Dez glanced down.
“Peggy Sullivan,” she said. “Secretary here at the school.”
“Peggy Sullivan,” echoed Trout. He nodded and they moved on.
They were a few steps from the second floor landing. Dez was on point, but she had turned to look down at the small body of a little boy who lay twisted on the midpoint landing. The child had been shot, but it was clear that he had been infected before he’d been put down. Dez was only distracted for a second, but it was enough for the other zombie to blindside her. This impact knocked her sideways, but she twisted around and put two rounds into the creature’s face.
“You okay?” JT asked from the bottom of the stairs. He was watching their back trail and carrying the heavy duffle of weapons. Trout was in the middle, unarmed and hypervigilant.
“Yeah,” Dez breathed. She took her pistol in both hands and went up the last few steps, checking the corners. “Clear.”
They followed her up and waited for her to check the hallway.
“I thought you cleared these things out of here.”
“We locked some of those things in the first two rooms,” said JT. “More upstairs.”
Dez moved cautiously forward. The classroom doors had frosted windows, but she could see awkward shapes shift and move behind the heavy glass. When she bent to listen should she could hear the low, hungry
