Wired (15 page)

“Don't worry, Frank. I know what I'm doing. I was in the military once.”

“Just don't get yourself in an impossible bind,” the mayor warned.

Graham took off in a hard run. Just as he reached the entrance a burst of gunfire echoed down the hall from somewhere far
off in the direction of the gym. Graham dived at the floor and slid across the hallway. He heard the knee to this pants rip
and felt a burning sensation on his leg. A quick look revealed only a minor skin burn. For a moment he crouched against the
wall, trying to get his bearings. The lights had been turned out and probably all the electricity was off. For as far as he
could see, the halls were empty, but he could smell gunpowder in the air. Cries and moans echoed up and down the halls. The
sound of the shooting faded away and the foreboding silence returned.

Slowly and carefully, Graham crept up to the first door and peered around the corner. Computers sat on their desks and the
children lay on the floor, covering their heads with their hands. They looked smaller than George, but larger than Jeff. Some
of the children were crying. His boys couldn't be in this room. The room was secure, but it just wasn't the right place. He
quickly pulled away and rushed down the hall toward the convergence where the hallways made a T. Graham cautiously looked
around the corner, but couldn't see anyone. Off in the distance he could hear shouting, but the halls remained empty. The
yelling sounded like policemen giving directions to each other.

Crawling on his hands and knees, Graham turned to his right and started down the corridor. As best he could remember, George's
room was down this hall. Thirty feet away was the door to a classroom. He slipped up quietly and cautiously peered into the
room. Ten feet from the door a teacher lay on the floor, clutching two children next to her body. The rest of the students
huddled together on the floor around the room. They looked the right size.

“Is George Peck in here?” Graham asked quietly.

“No,” the teacher said. “Are we still under attack?”

“Yes,” Graham said. “Everybody stay down.”

“George is in the next classroom,” the teacher said. “Down the hall.”

“Thank you,” Graham answered. “Keep everybody away from the windows.” He slipped past the door and ran for the next room.
Graham was only three feet from the door when the terrifying rattle of machine gun fire exploded through the building. Instantly,
he hit the floor and covered his head. The gunfire was so loud it sounded like the battle was just behind him. Handguns answered
with quick, sharp blasts. Suddenly an overwhelming boom roared through the building, shaking the windows. The walls quivered
and white tile fell from the ceiling. An engulfing cloud of dust and smoke rolled up the hall. The echo of the bomb rang in
Graham's ears and for a moment he could hear nothing but the rumble. Pieces of crumbling plaster tumbled from the wall and
bounced off of his helmet. The moaning and crying of the children increased. Rushing to the door, he jerked it open.

“Is George Peck in this room?” he shouted.

“Yes,” a boy's small voice answered.

“George? George, is that you?”

“Daddy?”

“Son, I'm here!”

George leaped up off the floor and ran for his father.

“Mr. Peck? Are we okay?” the teacher asked, standing up.

“I don't know,” Graham answered. “I'd suggest that you don't move until we know what happened in that explosion. I have to
find my other son.”

“Dad!” George grabbed Graham around the waist. “I'm so glad you're here.” He hugged his father fiercely. “Jeff is in the opposite
hallway.”

“Okay.” Graham grabbed his son's hand firmly. “I'm going the other way. You stay here until the authorities lead you out of
the building.”

“Yes sir.”

Graham looked at the teacher. “You're all right?”

“I think so,” she said. “If we can get out of here.”

“Don't worry. It'll be all over soon.” Graham dashed out of the room.

Running in the direction from where he had come, Graham could see that the explosion filled the hall with ceiling tiles and
cracked several of the walls. The smoke was heavier, which meant he had to be getting closer to the fighting. A burst of gunfire
filled the air and Graham dived to the floor again. The sound was much louder, which meant he was running into the area where
the men were fighting.

Graham took a deep breath. Jeff had to be closer to the explosion. He couldn't even let himself think about the consequences.
At the T in the hallway, he pressed forward and kept walking. Settling into a squatting position, he peered into the rooms,
and once satisfied Jeff wasn't in any of them, Graham pressed on until he came to another corner.

There hadn't been any shooting during the entire time he ran down the hall. Carefully, he looked around the corner. The hall
had disappeared in a cloud of dust, but he could hear men walking behind the dust and smoke. His heart nearly stopped as he
realized it could be the attackers. Suddenly he heard the voices of children and the noise of small feet coming toward him.
Graham cautiously looked around the corner again.

Out of the cloud of dust a policeman led children toward him and out of the building. Graham stoop up and inched around the
corner.

“Hey, I'm with the police!” Graham yelled. “Do you need help?”

“Yes,” a voice answered. “We're sending a classroom of preschoolers toward you.”

Graham stepped into the center of the hallway and suddenly saw Jeff's teacher. Covered with dust, Mrs. McElroy's hair stood
out in disarray and covered her eyes. She looked panic-stricken, but was leading her classroom out of the debris. Five children
behind her, Jeff was holding a little girl's hand.

“Jeff!” Graham screamed. “Jeff! It's me! Your dad!”

Jeff broke ranks and ran for his father. “Daddy!” he screamed. “Help me!”

Graham dropped to his knee and held his arms out. “Son!”

“Daddy!” Jeff slipped into Graham's arms and hugged him. “Oh, Daddy! I was so afraid.”

“It's okay now, son. We're all okay.”

A policeman hurried up. “Can you take these kids out of here? We shot the attackers, but we've got to get everybody out of
the building.”

“Sure,” Graham said. “I'll take them out.”

“Thanks.” The policeman hurried back into the smoky hallway.

“Oh, thank God!” Graham gasped. “I'm so relieved.” He hugged Jeff, pulling him as close as possible. “Thank heaven you're
all right.”

“What's happened to us?” the teacher asked.

“I think we've been struck by an attack of mass insanity, ma'am. People have gone stark raving nuts!” Graham started sliding
down the wall toward the floor. “Absolutely crazy.” He pulled Jeff even closer and felt tears sliding down the side of his
son's dusty cheek. “The world is falling apart.”

M
ARY RETURNED HOME
from school late to find George and Jeff sitting around the kitchen table with her parents. The stillness that had settled
over their home following Maria's death remained throughout the house. Mary didn't like the insular feeling and always tried
to turn on loud music when she came in. One glance at the kitchen table said tonight wouldn't be a good time for the raucous
soundtrack of
The Blasters
, her favorite.

“Hey, what gives with the long faces,” Mary said, and placed her palm-sized computer on the kitchen cabinet. “Someone d—”
She started to say “die,” and then stopped.

Graham slowly looked at her in dismay. “You haven't heard?”

“Heard what?” Mary maintained her usual ton of indifference intended to make anyone arguing with her sound stupid. “What you
talkin' about?”

Graham grimaced. “Only a teenager could say such a thing.”

“Your father is surprised you haven't heard about what occurred at the boys' school today.”

Mary looked more carefully at George. That sickly look had returned in his eyes that had appeared after Grandmother's shooting.
He seemed detached and distant. “What happened?”

“There was a terrorist attack on the school. Men got killed and a bomb went off,” her father said. “Got it? Your brothers
were square in the middle of the battle!”

May's negativity, her sense of detachment vanished. Giving her parents a bad time for the sake irritating them melted and
she was drawn back into the vortex of the family world.

“Oh my gosh!” Mary blinked several times. “Good heavens! I went out for basketball practice after school and didn't talk to
anyone. No, I didn't know.”

“Your father rushed into the building and helped bring the children out,” Jackie said. “He helped save people's lives.”

“No, I didn't,” Graham said quietly. “You're overstating the facts.”

“My goodness!” Mary looked at her father. “We're proud of you, Dad.”

“Sit down, Mary,” Graham said. “We need to talk.”

“Sure.”

Graham stared out the window. “Our lives have been turned inside out and upside down by attacks, assaults, and wars. Not only
was the school hit today, but there's a war raging tonight.”

“I heard about the war,” May interjected defensively. “We heard some reports over the school's television system.”

“Whatever you heard is an understatement,” Graham said. “The war is serious and people are getting killed at this moment.
We live out here in the suburbs where we should be protected and look at what's happened to us!”

“I can't even walk out in the backyard anymore without being terrified,” Jackie said.

“I don't know what we are going to do,” Graham answered, “but we've got to find some alternative.”

No one answered and the quietness became ominous. Mary kept glancing back and forth between her brothers and her parents.

“We need help.” Graham finally broke the silence.

Jackie nodded her head. “Graham, we haven't tried any of the Sunday Encounter Times group. Maybe if we…”

“P-p-lease, Mother!” Mary protested. “If there's one thing we don't need to get into, it's a bunch of religious nonsense.
That's the last thing I want to hear about!”

“Why?” Graham asked. “You got a better idea?”

“Look,” Mary said confidently, “we studied about religion at school. It's nothing but a superstitious way to hide from your
problems. I don't want any goofy spiritual talk around the supper table. None of this ‘talking to the sky' and calling it
god or heavenly father of some kind.”

“Then, what's your alternative?” Graham pressed.

Mary didn't like her father pushing her in a direction she didn't want to go. “You didn't like going on Sunday either,” she
retorted. “How come you've gotten so big on the idea?”

Graham glowered. “You've certainly got on the smart-mouth side of this argument, Mary. We're not trying to argue with you.
We are looking for an alternative.”

Mary slumped back in her chair and decided she would be better off if she kept her mouth shut. She wasn't going to get anywhere
by fighting with them. Mary looked down at the floor.

Jackie reached out and touched Graham's hand. “What about the Encounter groups?”

Graham shook his head. “I'd go if thought they would do me any good. The trouble is I don't need a fun and frolic time on
Sunday morning. I need someone to tell me the hard truth about why the entire world has gone crazy. Where have all of those
people gone? Why has the moon turned blood red and the weather gone berserk? Why did a creep kill my mother and how come the
Russians, the Muslims, and the Jews are all blowing each other up? I don't want to know how the skiing is this weekend.”

Silence fell over the room again. Jeff slipped off of his chair and snuggled next to his mother. She put her arm around him.

“I was afraid.” Jeff's voice sounded high and tense. “The bad men came, started shooting and I thought they would kill me.”

Jackie patted his head. “I know, son. We all understand.”

“We could hear them screaming and shouting,” George added. “And then all the lights went out. Our teacher started to go outside
in the hall, but she rushed back in and told us to get on the floor. She looked very afraid.” His voice trailed off into silence.

“We all could have been killed,” Graham said. “We're just lucky you boys weren't in the other end of the building.”

Mary didn't know how to respond to what she was hearing. On one hand, it was all true, and yet she didn't want to get religious
about what had happened. None of them had been killed so leave it at that.

“Something has gone terribly wrong with the world,” Jackie concluded. “Never in my life have I seen anything like what we
are living with today.”

Graham nodded his head. “That's what is so hard to put together. Values, morals, hopes, dreams—they've all gone down the drain
like yesterday's cold coffee. Everywhere I look people are in a panic. There simply has to be something more to hang on to
than what we've experienced.”

“Get tough!” Mary said almost before she meant to speak. “We've go to buckle down. Watch out for ourselves. What else?”

“Getting tough won't do it, Mary,” Graham said. “It's like an evil force has been loosed on the world and I can tell you that
I'm not up to doing battle with some monster that I can't even see.”

“Don't talk like that,” Mary protested. “I don't want to hear nonsense about all of this good and bad stuff. Before long you'll
be telling me to look for angels and to watch out for devils. Stop it!” she said with more force than she intended.

“I am your father!” Graham snapped. “Don't talk to me with that disrespectful sound in your voice.”

Mary crossed her arms over her chest and glared sullenly back at her father.

“You're right, Graham,” Jackie said. “It seems like what is happening to the world is different from anything I've ever known
in my life. I don't know what it means to talk about evil, but I get the feeling whatever that thing is, it is has crawled
under our house and made its home in the basement.”

The telephone rang. Graham picked up his remote control and punched the “on” button. “Hello.”