Authors: William R. Forstchen
Those around Kathy ran to the other side of the overpass, shouting that the sedan was getting away, screaming impotent curses at it while down on the interstate the trooper who had stopped was back into his car, driving through a cut across into the southbound side, joining in the procession of a dozen police cars still in pursuit.
The shot-up SUV was on its side, crashed into the grassy berm. No one was stopping to help, if help was possible.
“You still for Chamberlain Middle, lady?”
She looked back at the middle aged man, dressed in typical “Mainer business”: a blue blazer and shirt with no tie, chinos, and boat shoes.
“Yes.”
“My son is a student there. Seventh grade. Let’s see if we can get around this on back roads.”
She got back into her car and tried to back up but there was less than a foot to spare. She backed up as far as she could until bumpers hit. It gave the man in front of her just enough room to start squeezing his small Fiat back and forth before breaking free of the gridlock, turning about to head in the opposite direction. He actually drove with two wheels up on the walkway as he squeezed between two stalled SUVs similar to hers.
She sat in her car, not sure whether to wish him good luck or curse him for the way he was taking off. But he stopped, rolled down his window, and motioned for her to get in.
Without a second thought she abandoned her car, leaving the keys in the ignition so someone could move it if the road was ever cleared. She ran to the passenger side of her benefactor’s car and squeezed in.
“Never thought I’d like this car, wife insisted we buy it to save on gas,” he offered as she buckled herself into the narrow seat.
“If it gets us through this, I’ll buy one.”
“I'm Craig Sullivan, my boy John is at Chamberlain.”
“Kathy Petersen, my daughter Wendy is in seventh grade, my husband Bob teaches there. We’ve got to get there now.”
“I know Bob, my son thinks the world of him.”
There was a moment of silence as he squeezed around a stalled dump truck.
“Could you switch on my pad so we can check the reporting from the school?"
She had forgotten to bring hers as she had rushed out the door and was glad to have the link. She picked up his pad from the floor, switched it on, and found the website of a local news station.
“To repeat the latest news: The governor of Maine has just announced that all schools in the state are in lockdown mode. He has appealed to parents to not approach any school to try and retrieve their children at this time. I am asked to repeat that. Parents are not to try and go to any school within the state. All schools are in lockdown. No one in, no one out. The governor stated that law enforcement have been scrambled to every school, public and private, throughout the state and the children within are secured and safe. No child is to be released until it is felt that the situation is firmly under control.
“We have several reports now, one from Sanford, Maine, others from outside the state, of parents being mistaken for terrorists and shot. The situation, needless to say, is tense. If you are going to your child’s school, please stop and go home. Your presence can do nothing to help protect your child and might actually hinder our law enforcement and emergency personnel.”
She lowered the volume and looked in inquiry over at Craig.
“Screw that,” he snapped. “Chamberlain is in the middle of this and under attack. I told my son that if the crap ever hit the fan, he was to get out of the school and to hell with what any teacher or administrator said.”
He looked at her, realizing as he spoke that her husband was one of said teachers and that his comment might provoke an angry retort.
She nodded her head.
“Agreed. We go to the school,” and she turned the volume up to monitor the news while Craig pressed in the direction of the school.
The rapidly escalating national panic was fueled even more when one over-excited, self-aggrandizing reporter, who had nearly created a debacle in New Orleans during Katrina when he hysterically reported a total descent into anarchy in the emergency shelter established in the “Superdome,” was now crying that he believed that the attacks were spreading to dozens of schools and that thousands of children were being slaughtered across the nation.
His pronouncement quickly morphed into a report of fact as it leapt to the social internet sites, causing millions more to give way to their fears and ignore the logical warnings of state governors.
There was a time when a public official might actually have been trusted, such as the voice of Franklin Delano Roosevelt the day after December 7
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, and again Rudy Guiliani in the hours after the World Trade Center had been hit. But whom was actually trusted now?
Who was trusted when, every day yet a new scandal was revealed? Even before the killing started on this day, public trust in public officials was at its lowest in the history of the Republic.
Easy enough for a governor to say stay at home, was the first response of millions. His kids are in private school with 24/7 armed security around them. Members of Congress on up to the President? Their kids were in the most expensive Quaker school in the country in an upscale neighborhood of D.C. Few commented how ironic it was, that a religion devoted to complete non-violence, even in the face of this kind of attack, was the most heavily armed and secured school campus in the country, with security posted there round the clock, even in the middle of the night. Any attacker would face a firestorm of steel, complete with helicopter support, within seconds.
Who are they to tell us to stay home when our children are dying and theirs are protected?
And so the roads continued to fill up.
To add to the irony of it all, the news feed switched to Washington D.C., with a long-distance shot of a helicopter landing on the front lawn of that upscale school in Washington, a flurry of movement around it, heavily armed security forming a perimeter, a reporter announcing that the children of the President were thankfully safe and being airlifted “to an undisclosed location.”
Kathy watched the brief clip, incredulous at the insensitivity of it all. Never, ever would she wish harm upon that man’s innocent children. But it was an aloof display of the arrogance of power, as if she was to feel relief that at least his children were well protected, while at this very moment, her daughter could be wounded or dead, her husband, wounded or dead. Neither had a swarm of Secret Service agents, marine-piloted helicopters and, undoubtedly at this moment, attack helicopters and fighters, circling over Chamberlain Middle School.
She was jolted out of her resentful thoughts as Craig slammed on the brakes and turned the wheel. They were driving through a residential neighborhood, flanking the interstate, where traffic was at a complete standstill. The smoke plume they had seen in the distance was now visible, a multi-vehicle pileup on the roadway.
Directly in front of them a pickup truck had run a stop sign, not even slowing, skidded to make the turn, fishtailing, and slammed into a car headed the other way. Craig dodged the wreck, adroitly hitting the gas to regain control, and narrowly missed a man running down the middle of the street in the direction of the school. Then he sped up again.
She looked back at the pad.
“Back to our network headquarters in New York…"
There was a pause for what seemed like an eternity. The network had already created a logo, “America Under Attack.”
The logo snapped off, replaced by the familiar, comforting anchor for the network’s mid-afternoon programming. It was obvious, though, that he was struggling for the composure to convey calm, particularly after the hysterical report of one of their reporters minutes earlier claimed that attacks against schools were spreading across the nation.
He identified himself then pressed straight in:
“We have received reports from affiliates across the nation that numerous schools are under some form of attack. However, I can state clearly that only five of these have been confirmed and identified as ongoing attacks, contrary to some reports from this network.”
It was obvious he was furious over the hysterical report of minutes earlier claiming mass attacks across the country.
“The names of the schools which we have confirmed are under attack are listed at the bottom of your screen. Even if your child is in one of those schools, government officials implore you not to go there until the situation is under control. If your child’s school is not on this list, please remain at home and off the highways.
Kathy felt hesitation and looked over at Craig. His jaw line set as he swerved around a three-car accident at the next intersection.
“We’re going,” he confirmed, and she nodded, saying nothing.
“A new dimension to this day is now unfolding. Reports are starting to come in that while police attention across the nation has been focused on securing our schools, attacks have spread to our interstate highway system. So far over two dozen affiliates are reporting drive-by shootings on interstate highways. There is no discernible pattern to the locations of these attacks. Many of these attacks are taking place hundreds of miles away from any of the schools that we know are under siege.
“The nature of the highway attacks is identical to reports we broadcasted back in the spring when the terrorist army of ISIS moved into northern Iraq.”
As he spoke a box taking up half of the screen flashed on, time stamped from early June and filmed from the interior of a car, of barrels of AK-47s stuck out of side windows and Middle Eastern music playing. The murderers were shouting and laughing as they drove up alongside an orange car, and then a hail of gunfire poured into it. The car swerved off the road, accompanied by laughter and shouts of glee and cries of “Allahu akbar!” as the orange car, riddled with bullet holes, crashed.
“We have footage of such attacks from our affiliate in Austin, Texas, and from Knoxville, Tennessee, taken by news helicopters.”
The box showing the first attack was replaced by two smaller ones, video shot from helicopters, showing a massive conflagration on Interstate 40 filmed just east of Knoxville, Tennessee, engulfing both sides of the highway, dozens of cars piled up. The second small-screen footage was of a vehicle pursued by four or five police cars, passing a white sedan, gunfire striking the sedan which then swerved and slammed into the pillar of an overpass.
The screen returned to full size.
“Even as I am speaking to you, my producer is telling me that more footage is coming in from Daytona, Florida, and Dover, Delaware, of similar attacks.”
He paused and it was obvious he was not acting for dramatic effect. His voice was trembling, near to breaking.
“In light of what we are now seeing, I must personally say that America is facing a coordinated attack by a foreign enemy. There is no hard evidence yet, but I will lay my career on the line with this, that we are facing the long-anticipated and publicly announced attack that ISIS has been threatening us with for months. It is either ISIS or a radical group associated with them. This horrific attack bears the markings of mass murderers without regard for any concept of civilized behavior.
“I therefore appeal to all of you to do two things. First, pray to God that this scourge shall speedily pass away.”
That shocked Kathy. His words were both Lincolnesque but also unheard of in this current age. A reporter asking his listeners to appeal to God? An ironic thought that even now, within minutes, the network would probably be flooded with text messages and phone calls demanding that the reporter be fired for “jamming” his religious views down the throats of his audience and that he make an on-air apology for it.
“And second, I appeal to you that if you are on the road, trying to reach your children in schools, please, pull over, stop, and take a deep breath.”
He paused, obviously welling up.
“I cannot leave here to try to reach my kids, though every fiber of my being as a father is screaming at me to do so.”
He paused, lowering his head for a moment. In television, even a few seconds of silence felt like an eternity and it was a good ten seconds before he regained his composure to face the camera again.
“We need to take a break…” was all he could now muster.
Kathy looked at Craig, for a moment filled with doubt about what they were doing.
“We aren’t going any further,” he announced. She wondered if he was indeed abandoning their quest and was ready to turn about. If so, she would tell him to stop, get out and run the rest of the way. Their school, her daughter’s school, her husband’s school, was confirmed as being under attack. It was not a rumor, it was not a fear, it was confirmed and she had to be there.
Craig skidded to a stop and she looked up again. It was not that he was giving up. They were still a quarter mile out from Chamberlain Middle, but the road ahead was jammed bumper-to-bumper, red taillights glowing, frantic parents getting out of their cars, abandoning them in the traffic jam, deciding to run toward the chaos. Ambulances and police cars were driving across lawns and walkways, sirens wailing. It was a cacophony of madness.