Free Day of Wrath by William R. Forstchen Page A

McAuliffe Elementary, Perry High School, Chamberlain Middle School… not just in Portland but also to Oak Grove School in Vassalboro, Maine, to Tecumseh High in Lafayette Indiana, to Jackson elementary in Salem, Oregon… to thousands of schools across the country. The panic was on, just as the caliph had prophesied to his followers.  
    A news report from a school in Toledo, Ohio, came on the abandoned television, which reported a lockdown and shooting with one person dead so far. A possible attack, another similar report, came out of Savannah, Georgia. Both were actually panic-stricken parents, pulling up in front of their child’s school and leaping out of their vehicles. Those two unfortunate people were both openly carrying guns and ignoring the shouted warning of panicky police officers who were racing to every school around the country, believing that they were arriving only seconds ahead of, or just behind, a potential attack. Both parents were shot dead in a fusillade of fire. It would take hours to sort out that they were not terrorists, only frightened parents, but their deaths added to the tally of schools reported as being under attack.

    Inside Joshua Chamberlain Middle School
    The door to Bob's classroom burst open and the terrorist, the barrel of his assault weapon poised low from the hip, stepped halfway into the room with a calm arrogance. He fired a shot to kill a child, the one already wounded in the arm and huddled in the corner of the room.  
    Bob leveled his palm-sized Ruger at him and fired from less than three feet away. Shaking, he missed. Missed completely.  
    His startled enemy actually stepped back. This was not supposed to be happening. The infidels were cowards, sheep. How could this be? He started to swing the muzzle of his rifle toward the side of the door, to fire through the flimsy plaster walls. Bob stepped forward, this time nearly pressing the muzzle of the Ruger into his opponent’s face and squeezed the trigger. The shot caught the man in the jaw, shattering it in a spray of blood and teeth.  
    With a strangled cry, the attacker fell back into the hallway cursing, and a rapid spray of gunfire invaded the classroom. Every remaining window in the classroom shattered. Children huddled in the corner, out of the way of the barrage. Bob could actually see shell casings ejecting out in the hallway but the murderer whom he was certain he had hit was not visible.  
    “Come on you pig, you son of a bitch. Come on in!” Bob taunted.
    No response, only labored breathing, choking and spitting, then the sound of a magazine dropping.  
    It registered in his mind but he did not have the instinct to react swiftly. Something told him that if he reacted instantly he would catch his enemy reloading, reeling from the shock of being hit, and finish him. But he did not have the training, to instantly press his attack, and he remained frozen in place for several crucial seconds, pistol raised, as if expecting his enemy to foolishly step into his line of fire yet again.  
    His opponent was still out in the hallway, heavy, raspy breathing, gasping for air, gagging as if choking, and in that crucial moment hesitating as well in disbelief that he had actually been wounded by a damned infidel. He slammed in a loaded magazine and chambered a round, the sound of it loud and clear to Bob over the wailing of the fire alarm, the cries of the children, and the hissing of the sprinklers.  
    “Come on, you pig eater!” Bob screamed, trying to provoke him.
    There was a grunted response, and a shout from down the hallway, sounding like a command from one of the other killers. Several seconds of silence followed. Bob waited tensely. Surely they had grenades of some kind and Bob was waiting for one to bounce into the room. He caught a glimpse out the window, hoping to see a reflection of who was in the hallway, but all of the windows had been blown out. He heard shooting outside, the sound of sirens now, and what