Dead of Night

on,” under his breath as the heavy throp-throp-throp of the rotors beat closer and closer.

And then the miniguns opened up.

The cheers instantly turned into a shrill chorus of screams as the windows exploded inward in storm clouds of glittering glass. The shards swept across the packed crowd, slashing and tearing. Children dove under the seats, adults tried to shield them with their own bodies. Bullets buzzed above the massed people like a swarm of furious hornets.

Billy Trout dove behind an upright piano used for school shows and the bullets coaxed a mad, disjointed tune as they ripped the instrument into kindling. Despite the madness raining down around him, Trout punched the Record and Send buttons and aimed the camera at the windows.

CHAPTER NINETY-NINE

STEBBINS LITTLE SCHOOL

The Black Hawk hovered in the air like a nightmare, the minigun growing like a dragon, spitting hundreds of rounds at the top floor of the school. A second helicopter coasted with monstrous slowness past the far side of the school, firing at the row of lighted windows. Below them, the living dead moaned and reached with aching fingers toward the sky, trying to tear the machines down to tear them open for the meat inside. But the choppers were too high and the dead could not reach them, and the intensity of need within those moans rose to a horrible shriek.

* * *

“This is Billy Trout reporting live from the apocalypse!” he yelled. “I don’t know if you can hear me, but we are under attack. Please … if anyone can hear me, we need help!” He turned up the gain on the lavaliere mike clipped to his lapel so that his words could be heard over the din of screams and automatic gunfire. “We’ve been begging for help from the government … and this is how they respond!”

* * *

Dez was curled in a fetal crouch, her arms wrapped around her head, her body bleeding from dozens of cuts. Her eyes were squeezed shut, but her mouth was open as a continual, red-raw scream tore itself from the deepest part of her. A dozen feet away, JT Hammond was curled into a similar knot, trying to shrink into himself. He, too, screamed.

This is not an attack by a terrorist organization. These are not the infected that I’ve been telling you about.

Billy panned the camera to show the helicopter hovering outside, its cannons filling the air with fire and death.

That is a UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter. It is part of the Army National Guard detachment sent to contain the plague outbreak in Stebbins. It is not firing on the infected. There are no infected where I am. I’m in the auditorium of the Stebbins Little School … a regional elementary school. Most of the people in this room are children. There are also teachers and some citizens of Stebbins who were told by authorities to come to this place because it is the county emergency shelter. I repeat … the people here are not infected. There are mostly children and people directed here as an official shelter.

* * *

Mrs. Madison crawled off the stage and into the sound room. The bullets couldn’t reach her in there, and she began waving to people — adults and children — to follow her. It was a risk though. It meant running across the no-man’s-land of the stage. A few tried. Not everyone succeeded.

From the booth, Mrs. Madison could see Billy Trout huddled under the piano. She knew what he was doing and could hear snatches of it. Then she saw the big microphone on its silver stand, the one that was provided for the pianist when she sang along with the children. The wires snaked across the stage, and the leads were still socketed into place on the sound board. The auditorium, she knew, was part of the emergency services setup in the school. The backup generator that powered the lights also provided power to essential emergency equipment. Including the public address system.

Mrs. Madison flipped a row of switches and channeled the feed from the fallen microphone into the main public address system, then turned the volume all the way to the right. Suddenly Billy Trout’s voice boomed like thunder from every speaker mounted inside — and outside — the school. When Trout heard this, he grinned, reached out and pulled the mike closer.

This cult of secrecy and the military’s obsession with owning the worst weapons of destruction has brought us all to this moment. More than six thousand people have died today. They were murdered. Nearly the entire population of Stebbins County. These people are no less victims of terrorism than were the nearly three thousand people who died when the Twin Towers fell, or the two hundred and sixty-six people in the four hijacked planes used on 9-11. Or the one hundred and twenty-five people killed at the Pentagon that day. Or the thousands killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. But what makes it more tragic, more unforgiveable … is that the people of Stebbins were not killed by al-Qaeda or the Taliban. There are no terrorist cells operating in Stebbins county. These people were murdered by the U.S. government because some people believe that it is better to kill the innocent than to admit a mistake.

* * *

On the other side of the building, the children and teachers and parents and refugees from the storm crawled under the auditorium seats, screaming and crying out in fear and confusion. For many of them the light of hope was blasted out of their eyes, not through injury, but as they tried and failed to grasp the meaning of what was happening. First the infected attacking and slaughtering so many, and now the rescuers — the army—turning their haven into a killing ground of flying glass and blood.

We cannot allow ourselves to become a nation of fools and slaves. We cannot allow our own government to serve its own agendas at the expense of the people. I appeal to every true American, every patriot — whether you’re left or right — to stand up and say: “Stop!”

* * *

Outside the fence line, hundreds of National Guardsmen stood ready, waiting for the helicopters to do their work so that the next phase of the cleanup could start. Sergeant Polk sat among them, listening to the words that boomed from the speakers mounted outside the school. He smoked a cigarette, chain-lighting it from the last. Discarded butts lay in a puddle by his feet.

One of the men in his squad chortled. “Do you hear this bullcrap?”

Polk turned to him.

“What’s wrong, Sarge?”

Polk nodded toward the school. “I didn’t sign up for this shit.”

“Geez, man, what’d that bitch cop do to you? You going all girlie on us?”

Polk drew in the smoke, held it in his lungs, and exhaled slowly. Then he abruptly got out of the vehicle and began walking toward the gate.

“Hey!” yelled the other soldier. “Polkie … what the shit are you doing?”

“Taking a goddamn stand.”

“What for?”

Polk whirled. “There are people alive in there. Haven’t you fucking been listening?”

He turned and kept walking.

A lieutenant started to run after him. “Sergeant Polk, get your ass back to the line right goddamn now.”

Polk turned again. “This is wrong! We’re supposed to be here to help.”

“We can’t help these people,” growled the lieutenant.

“We didn’t even fucking try!”

He reached the row of parked Humvees and climbed into one.

“Sergeant, I am ordering you to stand down.”

Polk started the engine and put the Humvee in gear.

The lieutenant drew his sidearm and pointed it at Polk. “Sergeant, stand down and step out of the vehicle or