Paradise Falls (63 page)

“We should-“

Jacob cut her off. He cupped her head in his hands lightly, avoiding touching the bruises, and kissed her gently on the lips.

“You’re not gonna die,” she said, breathless.

“Neither are you. We gotta go, honey.”

“I know.”

From there, they walked, down the eerily quite side streets, until the school was in sight. Jacob motioned her to a halt but Jennifer had already stopped, and leaned on his arm. The school was surrounded by police and she saw yellow FBI letters on jackets, and they were a good ways back from the edge of the front yard of the school, on the far side of Academy Street. Jennifer could just make out figures moving on top of the school.

“We need a way in,” he said. “We have to get past their perimeter and get inside. They’re going to try to negotiate. When that doesn’t work they’ll storm the building. When they storm the building the Fangs will kill everyone inside.”

Jennifer nodded.

“They’ll have everyone in a central location. Gym or auditorium.”

“How do you know?”

“I would,” he said, grimly. “Use your scope. Tell me what you see.”

The rifle butt pressed into her shoulder. She leaned over the stock, her arm trembling to hold the gun up. She rested her arm on Jacob’s back to steady herself and turned the dial to increase the magnification.

“I see two guards by the door,” she said, sweeping it along. “There’s more inside, in the hallways. I can see them through the windows.” She swung the rifle towards the auditorium. “They’re all over the place.”

“We need to get inside,” said Jacob. “How?”

The heavy thump of a helicopter rattled her chest and she looked up to see one swing overhead. This one was different, blacked out. It was small and reminded her of some kind of ponderous dragonfly. There were men sitting on the skids, all in black.

“Who?” said Jennifer.

“The cavalry,” said Jacob. “Christ, they’ll get everyone killed. Is there a way into the school? One they might not know about?”

Jennifer bit her lip.

“Wait,” she said. “I remember one of the custodians complaining about it. When they wired the school for the Internet they ran a tunnel from the building out to the agricultural complex. It’s behind the main football field.”

“Let’s go,” he said, and moved before she could protest.

Jacob swung wide, moving towards the old dairy. Together they darted across the road, and into the hedges that line the school yard. The buildings were in the middle of a vast open space with freshly cut grass. Of course.

“Around the back. We’ll go from the field to the bleachers to the ag building. Got it?”

She nodded.

“Go.”

Jacob ran, moving along the hedges, and Jennifer followed at full sprint, panting to keep up. How was he moving like this after all that? He skidded to a stop, ran for the field. There was no one out here.

“Stupid,” Jacob said, “Should have someone out on the bleachers with a radio.”

As if summoned, the man appeared. He stepped out of the observation booth at the very top and walked along the top. Only by chance, he turned away and gave Jennifer time to duck under the side of the bleachers, beside Jacob.

“You’re going to shoot him,” Jacob said. “When he turns the other way. I’ll tell you when.”

Jennifer licked her lips and her throat went dry.

“I don’t… I don’t know if I can…”

“Jennifer,” Jacob said, “I promise you, if there was another way, we’d take it. We can’t move past him. We’d be too exposed.”

Jennifer stared up at the top of the bleachers, her stomach trembling.

“Give me the rifle. I’ll do it.”

“No. I have to do it. You might miss.” She swallowed and nodded. “When?”

“He’s got a radio. I’ll bet he checks in every few minutes. We need as much time as we can get to move before they come looking for him. What’s he doing?”

“He’s talking.”

Jennifer watched him converse with the radio. By the movement of his thumb on the button, he was going back and forth with whoever was on the other end a few times. Finally he clipped it to his belt.

“Now,” said Jacob.

“God forgive me,” she whispered.

The man at the top of the bleachers looked towards the school. Jennifer’s shot took him at the base of his skull, just behind his ear. The rifle thumped against her shoulder but not enough to take her off target, so she saw the spray from the other side. It was like something broke inside her. She almost dropped the rifle.

“I think I’m gonna throw up,” she coughed.

“Hold onto it. Feel it later.”

He took her arm and pulled her along. Every fiber of her being screamed not to look but she did anyway and saw the slumped, boneless form of the dead man on the bleachers. Jennifer had sat up there herself more than once at football games, cheering on the team. She looked away and focused as Jacob ran with her across the open space to the Ag Building. It was a prefab structure, added on to the school to replace an older, now torn down building that looked like an old farm house. The back door was locked. Jacob chanced it and kicked it in, and pulled her in behind him.

The building was empty, but the classroom was cluttered, full of the teacher’s hunting trophies, stacks of books on turf management and hunting safety, specimens and materials, scientific equipment to use on grass samples from the fields. Jacob stormed through the room, weirdly out of place. Despite the rifle he carried, he still looked like some kind of viking warrior.

“Where?”

Jennifer didn’t know where, but she knew what. She followed the pvc pipe that carried the network cable to a junction box behind the teacher’s desk. Jacob shoved the desk aside and pulled the throw rug out from behind it. There was a new trap door in the floor. He threw it open and looked inside.

The tunnel was barely high enough to crouch, and the floor sloped inwards to carry a thin trickle of water down the middle. Jacob dropped in first and motioned her inside. Jennifer checked the safety on her rifle and climbed down after him, and pulled the hatch shut.

As she squeezed the strap on his vest, her hand brushed his shoulder. Jesus, he’d bandaged himself with
duct tape
.

“Jacob,” she said, “before we do this…”

He cut her off. “We’re going to make it.”

She nodded, and dropped down into the tunnel. It was barely tall enough to crawl forward.

As they crawled along, Jacob said, “where does this come out?”

“The teacher’s lounge, I think,” she said. “That’s where all the computer network crap is.”

“How long?”

“Fifty yards? I don’t know.”

“Are you ready for this?”

“No,” she said.

“Good. I’d feel a little weird if you said yes.”

“What about you?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I feel sick.”

They finally reached the end of the tunnel. Jennifer wanted to flop down and sleep, right there. Her pants were wet with the filthy water from the tunnel floor and she was exhausted. Jacob’s arms trembled and he was too pale. She touched his arm. He looked her in the eye.

Jacob slowly lifted the trap door, peering into the thin sliver of light. The networking stuff was all in the utility room behind the lounge proper, where the copiers and paper cutter and laminating machine were kept. He ducked back down and nodded to her, touching his finger to his lips for silence.

“They’ve got guards in the lounge. I need to make this quiet.”

“How many?”

“Two. I’ll tap my foot on the trap door when I’m done,” he said, unslinging his weapon.

“Wait-“ Jennifer started, but he was already climbing out.

She heard a sound, like a
whump
, a wet splat and another dull thud, then footsteps. A foot tapped on the door. Jennifer lifted it up, saw Jacob’s feet and pushed it the rest of the way open. She handed his gun up and climbed out herself. He grabbed her arm and pulled her into an embrace as she stood up.

“Just walk through. Don’t look.”

She did her best, but as he stopped at the door and peered out, she looked back and saw what he did and went pale.

“Look at me.”

She swallowed.

“How do we get to the roof?”

“There’s stairs up in the gym, I think.”

“Good. We’ll go that way,” he whispered, “cross the roof and get into the auditorium through the second floor. Through a window if we have to.”

Jennifer nodded. He held his rifle by the carry handle and took her arm and pulled her along with him, stopping to check the corners. The gymnasium was around the corner from the teacher’s lounge, thank God. Jacob pulled her across the hallway, peered through the tiny windows in the gym doors and pushed inside. It was empty, and dark.

Jennifer and Jacob walked around to the locker rooms, towards the maintenance area behind- the old boilers were still behind the gym, and the ladder heading up.

12.

Jennifer rounded the corner and walked into a shotgun. She almost cried out, but stopped herself just in time.

Brock Edwards swung the muzzle of the shotgun up, moving his fingers away from the triggers. He stared at the two in astonishment, and looked at Jennifer.

“Jenn, you’re covered in blood.”

“It’s not mine,” she said, absently. “What are you
doing
here?”

He blinked.

“I don’t even fucking know. Who the hell are these people? Fifty of them show up at the school out of nowhere, started herding everybody into the auditorium. I slipped out the back, got my shotgun from the car,” he hefted it from his hand, “and came back in through here. I made a call to the state barracks and I’ve been holed up here ever since. What in God’s name is going on?”

“Tell him,” said Jennifer.

Jacob gave him the short version, in harsh whispers. Edwards nodded along, but when Jacob finished he said, “Are you fucking kidding me?”

“No,” said Jacob. “I’m serious. We need to move.”

“Are you nuts, boy? They have the halls covered. The second you start shooting they’ll all come running. It’ll be a bloodbath.”

“It’ll be a bloodbath if we don’t,” said Jennifer.

“She’s right,” Jacob added. “This what they want. They let you escape to call the authorities.” he trailed off.

“What?” Jennifer said. “Jacob, what is it?”

He swallowed, hard. “Demolition explosives. They’re going to blow the whole building. It’s a suicide attack.”

He went pale. “Jesus Christ. Between staff and students there must be a seven or eight hundred people in that auditorium.”

“Listen,” said Jacob.
 
“I need you to get outside and get to the police perimeter. If they try to breach the building, the fangs will set off off the bombs and kill everyone.”

He ran up the metal staircase, headed for the roof. Jennifer took the steps two at a time to keep up. Edwards huffed his way up behind them, stopping at the top as Jacob opened the roof hatch and looked around, pushed it open and motioned her up. Jennifer crouched beside him, behind one of the big, rattling air condensers on the roof.

Jacob looked around, moved around the corner, and she followed. The auditorium was at the far end of the building, like a castle tower, taller than the rest. It even had crenelations along the top. Jacob crouched in place, breathing. Over his shoulder, Jennifer saw no guards, but she saw an army.

The school was completely surrounded. That explained the lack of guards- they retreated from the open roof. Even with the bridge down, they must have been coming from the other direction, from the east.

“If they see us, they might shoot.”

“What do we do?”

“Get low. Crawl on our bellies. Sling your rifle on your back.”

Jennifer did as he said, and laid out on the tar roof. It was like lying on a frying pan. She crawled along next to him, using her elbows, sucking a breath and pushing back tears every time her wounded hand moved. She kept it off the roof, shifted her weight onto her right side. He crawled along, looking at the sky. For the helicopter, she realized. If it flew over it would spot them. When they were close to the roof access door on the auditorium, a chopper came over.

It was bigger and heavier, and not black. It took Jennifer a blinking moment to realize what it was. A news chopper. The little, black helicopter buzzed it and made it move off, shouting commands through a loudspeaker. Jacob lifted her to her feet and gave her a moment to get her rifle ready. The door was locked, but it was just a knob. It took Jacob less than thirty seconds to pick it and slip the tools back in his vest. He pulled the door open, then froze and shut it again.

“Damn it,” he said.

“What?”

“The sun is at our backs. If I open the door they’ll see the light. Shit.”

Jennifer let out a ragged sigh.

“The roof, is there a way in?”

“I don’t… yes, yes there is. Before they killed the funding the school had one of those low frequency AM stations. The antenna is on the roof.”

Jacob nodded. “I’ll boost you up.”

“Your arm,” she said.

“You’re going to help me get on the roof. Sling your weapon.”

After it was on her back, Jacob grabbed her around the waist and lifted her again, but she could feel him trembling, his shoulder ready to give out. She grabbed the roof and pulled herself up and over and rolled onto the tar. Before she could let the fatigue grab her and pin her down, she rolled back and held out her arms. Jacob gripped her right forearm in both hands and put his foot on the stone, and she pulled him up far enough to get ahold of the jutting crenelations that ringed the roof and pull himself over, panting. Blood trickled out from under his crude, duct taped bandages.

“I’ll rest later,” he rasped, before she could even say anything.

He peered over the side and Jennifer looked with him.

“Fuck,” he barked.

“What?”

“Look.”

 
A SWAT team, or something like it, was moving on the school. A whole cluster of them in black, with a heavy metal riot shield and a tubular ram for the door. They were headed for the side entrance to the auditorium. Jacob looked over.

“They’re going to break in and take the auditorium by force. We need to get in, now.”