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We went in and shouldered our way through the crowd They atching live news coverage of the chaos in Undisclosed on three dozen flat-screen TVs of various sizes The Action 5 News Tea over and over--that there was some kind of unspecified crisis in the town, that they didn’t know the nature of it but that it was huge and terrible and that we should all relued to our televisions Then they threw it out to star reporter Kathy Bortz, as standing about one block from my house:
"Thank you, Michael Look behind e RV that appears to be a mobile command center from the Centers for Disease Control Nu house fire There is unshots e first arrived, we have been told there are at least three bodies but that’s all we know Personnel are--as that? Did you catch that, Steve? Back onto push back onlookers, as you can see quite a crowd has gathered around Information has been hard to come by but e know is that this is the sahbors called in reports of a shouting, bloody, nakedwhat appeared to be--what’s that? Steve? No, there’s so on my--AH!"
Kathy swatted at her hair, like a woman who has realized a bee has nested there Only two people in the Best Buy saw that it was not a bee
She screauy, apparently, because the screen jerked and suddenly ere looking at the reporter’s feet She wore tennis shoes I always remember that part
The knees of her pantsuit ca She fell flat into the grass While the Action 5 News audience watched, the face of Kathy Bortz fell into fra froash
Gasps from the crowd around us On the screen, Bortz shrieked, and shrieked The strip of eaten flesh on her face grew, edging down, across her eyebrow The invisible-to-everyone-else carnivore quickly chewed across her eyelid, then dug into her eyeball, spilling pale fluid down across the bridge of her nose
The shot cut back to the male and female anchors Perfect-haired anchor Michael McCreary blinked, looked off camera and said, "What the FUCK?" His female coanchor turned to lean behind the desk, and voed with panic--that bottled-up, impotent panic of a crowd that doesn’t kno to act on it Should they riot? Loot the place? Burn it down? Should they stampede out of there? To where? Cinnabon?
Instead, everybody just kind of stood shoulder to shoulder, , covering her mouth with one hand
My cell phone screamed and half a dozen people around me almost shit their pants On the screen it said:
AMY
"Amy! Can you hear me?"
"Yes!"
"Did you hear the news?"
"Yes, David--"
"Listen to ot out of town Noe may have to coo back to town because--"
"David Stop talking Did you not get any of --"
"Shit! Turn around! Amy, it’s chaos in there Get off at the next stop and--"
The background noise had cut off frootten dropped No bars on the phone
"Shit! John, she’s on her way down here!"
"No, that’s good news, ure out how far the bus got and we’ll meet her there Hell, if we head north we’ll run into her at soe this tie said simply, WHAT IS HAPPENING
There was a photo attached I opened it
All of the warha puddle on the tile floor
The photo was ofhouse Taken from not twenty feet away
I sat down, an act that was not entirely voluntary I was in a forest of legs My head i?"
"She’s athouse, John A and she went to my house To find me"
"She’s … I’ether, she’ll--"
"I have to go back for her"
"You’re dah the crowd, knocking rudely through shoulders and elbows