12
We run with him down the narrow passage between two big rigs.
Quick stop.
Two armed guards on patrol.
Jack ducks under the trailers, hiding until they're gone.
Moves on.
Squeezing through some temporary fencing, he jumps in the back of a truck headed back into town.
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Sedated people are strapped to gurneys in a social studies classroom. Among them we find Ianto, semi-conscious, shoved in here amid the overturned desks.
An examiner works from a field kit, not providing medical care, taking tissue and blood samples.
Gunfire erupts outside. The examiner stops his work and stares out the window. He doesn't move. Something terrible is happening out there.
Craning his neck, Ianto can see the ball field where pandemonium has broken out. Crazed people attack examiners, murdering med-techs. They overwhelm the guards, shoot them with their own weapons, pull down the fence at center field, causing a stampede.
The perimeter soldiers converge and open fire, but they can't stop the escape.
Seen through the haze of sedation, the horror is dreamlike. Ianto's eyes flutter closed. Helpless on his gurney.
Yesterday's homework assignment chalked on the blackboard above him.
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Sitting among stacks of crates, Jack watches the moonlit prairie go by. Like a practical joke, an old road sign goes past: "Welcome to Marsh County. Friendliest Place on Boeshane."
Jack looks at the boxes, curious what's inside. He opens one. Wishes he hadn't.
BODY BAGS.
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Pot of coffee on the coffeemaker at the sheriff's office has boiled itself dry. The door creaks open. Jack, crouched like a thief, hurries to his desk, grabs his spare revolver, some bullets.
A shotgun from the gun rack. Shells.
Loading up, he catches sight of something horrific. Drops a box of shells. On the floor of the holding cell Johnny is dead. His back arched high off the floor. Neck tendons, obscenely tight, practically tearing the jaw from his face.
Jack steps back, right onto the barrel of a shotgun aimed at his head.
"Easy."
Jack raises his arms, turns. "Andy?"
"Chief?!"
"Stop surprising me like that." Jack huffs, caught again.
Manly embrace.
Jack goes to look at Johnny again
"Don't look at that." Andy swallows, showing he already has.
"They let you guys out?" Jack asks.
"Let us? People went nuts. Tore the place apart. It was like a human slaughterhouse. I just ran." Andy snorts then the sound of a passing vehicle interrupts them.
They duck the flash of its headlights. It's that same black hover going at ninety miles an hour.
"Ianto, man, I tried to stop 'em." Andy whispers.
Jack nods, gathering shells from the floor.
Stands, man on a mission. "I'm going to get him."
Davidson double pumps the shotgun, the stress of the situation bringing out his redneck roots. "Hoo-fuckin'-yah, chief, let's go to the high school."
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Screams fill the school.
Violent chaos spilling from the classrooms.
An Examiner runs down a second-floor corridor past a half-dressed Crazy roaming the halls in a head bandage. "Let's go! Forget it, we're leaving! We are leaving!"
They scramble for the exits.
The one drawing blood samples hears the evacuation order. Grabs his things and runs out, accidentally leaving a needle embedded in the last victim's arm. Blood drips onto the floor.
PLIP. PLIP. PLIP.
We move up the arm to the face...
It's IANTO.
He stares at the dripping blood. Hands strapped, he can't do anything to stop it.
They jump in helicopters and into trucks. It's obvious what's happening. The military is pulling out, conceding town center to the lunatics.
Jack and Andy, avoiding the main streets, cut through a series of backyards in a dark residential neighborhood. The night reverberates with the faint sound of gunfire. They hop a fence and Jack grabs Andy, pulls him sharply back.
A woman sits at a picnic table in a bathrobe gutting a turkey. Creepy uncomprehending stare. Her husband noosed from a tree behind her.
"Did Peter call?" she asks the turkey repeatedly.
Madness.
They move on, hop the other fence.
The housewife screaming after them "DID PETER CALL?!"
As they distance themselves, a look of dread comes to Andy's face. "That's gonna be me."
"You don't know that." Jack pants as they skim along the fencing.
"Right out of my goddamn tree like my Uncle Willard who swears on the Bible he ate a tadpole and shat out a bullfrog, and that's without the screwy water so –"
Andy, we got enough problems without you inventing 'em."
"Easy for you to say, you're at the end of the pipeline. I'm half a mile from the Davies." Andy is whining now.
"Who's the sheriff?"
"What?" Andy asks with confusion.
"Who's the sheriff of Marsh County?"
"You."
"I am. Who's the deputy?"
"Me."
"You are. Deputy does what the sheriff tells him, that's the balance of power. Now I'm telling you you're not getting sick, understand?" Jack explained and Andy nods, appreciating the sentiment.
"Hope you're right, chief. I'm no world beater but I had plans."
Crossing a street, they see military drones, perhaps a mile away, lifting off into the night sky. Jack, alarmed, quickens his stride.
"That's the school! They're bailing! Come on!" Jack growls.