Red Rain

the building. Many of them are your parents, waiting to see you. How many of you would like to go out and see your parents right now?”

No hands went up. A boy giggled. That made several other kids laugh.

“What’s funny, kiddos?” Mrs. Maloney demanded. “Someone tell me, what’s funny?”

The red curtain had started to form over Samuel’s vision. But he could see the uncertainty in her eyes, and he saw the uncertainty turn to fear.

She tried again. “Your parents will be so happy to see you. Come on, everyone. Follow me. Let’s all go outside.” She motioned toward the front doors and took a few steps. But no one made a move.

“You don’t understand, mum,” Daniel said almost in a whisper. “We rule the school.”

Her eyes widened in surprise. “Daniel? You? You are behind this bizarre behavior? You and your brother? I. . don’t believe it. You are good lads, I know. What-?”

And then Samuel turned his eyes on her, aimed the full heat of his power at her forehead. He misjudged. Aimed a little too high, and her hair caught fire. That bristly steel-wool hair burst into red flames.

She screamed and grabbed at her head with both hands. And he lowered the beam to her forehead. The skin peeled open, blistered, and split apart.

Her head is opening up. Like a flower blooming.

She raised her hands and pressed them against her burning face. Dropped heavily to her knees. And Samuel sent the fire to the top of her head, a powerful blast that made him dizzy for a second, made him quake, his knees threatening to buckle.

Her head burned like a torch. Her eye sockets lay black and empty now. And her nose was gone, just a dangling flap of charred skin.

The eyes burn so quickly. How quickly a face melts.

The fire moved down her neck, crackling, popping, setting the shirt ablaze. She toppled forward. Her charred head hit the hard floor with a smack. Her big body a beached whale, a pile of kindling.

She ended her life as a bloody bonfire.

Samuel shut his eyes. Kept them closed, waiting for them to cool, listening to the sizzle of Irish bacon.

A hard pounding, a deafening boom, jarred him from the pleasure of the moment. He turned to Daniel as a deep voice on the other side of the front door bellowed: “Open up! Police! Open this door-now!”

64

Pinto and Pavano arrived at the middle school less than five minutes after they got the call. Pinto bumped the black-and-white onto the curb and muttered, “Oh, shit.”

Pavano saw the crowd move toward them. Maybe twenty or thirty people. Parents? “How the fuck did they get here before we did?”

The two cops had no choice. They climbed out of the car. The shouted questions were like an attack.

“Are our kids in there?”

“What did you hear? Who brought them here?”

“Are they hostages? Is this a kidnapping?”

“What’s going on? What are you going to do?”

A jumble of frightened voices.

Pavano spotted three people, two men and a woman, at the side of the building. It took him a few seconds to realize they were about to climb into an open classroom window.

“Hey! Stop!” Pavano took off, shouting as he ran. “Back away! Now! Back away from that window!”

A young man in gray sweats turned to face him. “We want to get our kids out.”

“We’ll get your kids,” Pavano said, struggling to catch his breath. “But we don’t know who’s in there. If this is a hostage situation, you could put your kids in even greater danger.”

The three parents stared hard at him, a tense face-off.

“Step back. Let the police handle this. We have to figure out what is happening here.”

The parents finally relented. Pavano led them back to the sidewalk.

The parents formed a circle around the two officers. The women were dressed in shorts and T-shirts, some in morning-run or workout sweats or tights. A few of the men appeared dressed for work. A very tanned man wore a black swimsuit and flip-flops and had a blue beach towel over his shoulder. A gray-haired couple held each other around the waists of their maroon sweats, tears rolling down their faces. Must be grandparents.

Pinto crossed his arms on his uniform shirt. He had a distant look in his eyes, as if he was willing himself away from this. Pavano raised his hands for quiet, but the shouts and frantic cries only grew louder.

“We know how worried you are. But don’t do anything crazy. We’re going to take care of this. Your kids will be safe.” He told them what he thought they wanted to hear.

He glanced up the lawn at the school building. The red morning sunlight glowed in the long row of classroom windows. No sign of anyone near the school or at the double doors of the entrance.

Pavano let out a sigh of relief as, sirens blaring, a convoy of cars pulled onto the grass. He saw Franks in the first car, an old Ford Crown Victoria, black, with New York State Police emblazoned in yellow on the door. Followed by two more state cars and then the feds in three unmarked Escalades.

The state guys went to work, pushing back the crowd, herding them off the lawn and toward the street.

Jogging along the sidewalk, his brown suit jacket flapping around him, Franks waved both hands, motioning Pinto and Pavano toward the building. “Let ’em know we’re here.”

As if the sirens weren’t a tip-off.

Pavano trotted after Pinto, up the long stone walk to the front entrance, past the bare flagpole, past an abandoned red backpack in the grass, the flap open, obviously empty.

“What’s the plan here?” Pavano said, a heavy feeling rising in his stomach as they stepped into the shade of the three-story school. “We just knock on the door and they come out?”

“Beats the shit out of me.” Pinto picked up the abandoned backpack, inspected it, and tossed it back onto the grass. “Do I know what the hell is going on? Kids go missing on Friday and Saturday. All found in school on Monday? Does that fucking make sense? Why would kidnappers take a hundred kids to school? It’s fucking insane.”

Pavano stared hard at his partner. Pinto was already red-faced and breathing hard, beads of sweat glistening on his broad forehead despite the coolness of the morning.

“You read the reports from yesterday. Just about every parent said the same fucking thing. Their kids vanished without a word. No sign of violence. No break-ins. The kids were just gone.”

“I read ’em all,” Pinto said, eyes on the entrance. “And what was that shit about blue arrows on their faces?”

“Just like Sutter’s kids, remember? They said it was a school thing. The principal told them to do it.”

Pinto grunted. “It’s an alien thing, Andy. The kids were all abducted by aliens. They’re slaves on another planet by now.”

Pavano snickered. “Neighbors saw kids coming into the school this morning carrying laptops and TVs. No way they can be on another planet if they’re robbing every house in the neighborhood.”

“Just sayin’.” Pinto didn’t smile.

A shadow passed over them. Cawing birds swooping overhead made Pavano glance up. The clouds overhead were jagged and torn, as if a big cloud had been shredded into long pieces, the sky as frenzied and chaotic as everything down below.

Pinto took the front steps two at a time. He tried one door, then the next. “Locked.” He raised both fists to the double doors and pounded against the wood. “Open up! Police! Open this door- now!”

Before they could detect any response, Franks stepped up behind them, badge dangling on his suit lapel, followed by four federal agents with FBI stenciled in red on their gray flak jackets.