Fall of Night (Dead of Night Series) Read Online Free PDF Page B

even bigger. The president and everyone in his circle had one chance to win this thing back and that was to own it, take the bullet, and while they were still in office do what they could to prevent further spread of Lucifer 113. Essentially, they could save the world without filtering that through their own political self-interest.
    Goat didn’t believe in Bigfoot or the Easter Bunny, either, so he figured that wouldn’t be the way the White House would play it. It made him wonder where the line was between cynicism and clarity of vision.
    Goat sipped his coffee and smiled at what was about to happen. Despite all of the pain and loss, and the deaths of so many people he knew, there was a dark and dirty part of Goat’s mind that murmured disappointment that things didn’t go completely south at the Stebbins Little School. Billy’s previous speech, which Goat had streamed live to all of the news services, had made it impossible for POTUS to allow the National Guard to destroy the school and sterilize the town with fuel-air bombs. From here on, the story would roll forward on wheels greased by the political blood of everyone whose head would roll, and on the public outpouring of grief over the thousands who’d died from the infection. But the story was becoming past tense. The kids at the school, now rescued, would become a symbol, a talking point, a voting influence at the next election. On the other hand, a couple of hundred kids being shot to death and then burned on national TV—that story would keep going, keep running, keep shouting for everyone to pay attention and react. And he, Goat, would be the conduit for that story to get out to the world. He was already part of the story, but if they wiped Stebbins off the map, then he would be the story. The only survivor. The fearless cameraman who’d gotten the truth out, getting footage while the world burned around him.
    He would be the most famous journalist on earth. Immediately and irrevocably.
    Had the story gone that way, gone that far.
    Now it looked like it would break in a different way. There were already posts claiming that the Stebbins thing was another Internet hoax, that Billy Trout was a liar, that he was some kind of grandstanding fruitcake, and even that he was a cyber-terrorist.
    Goat wondered how much of that was genuine disbelief or White House spin doctoring. Maybe a fifty-fifty split? Either way, this was brewing into a mother of a story. He murmured the words “impeachment” and “Pulitzer,” and he liked how each of them tasted on his tongue.
    But then he felt a flash of guilt. He hated that he thought about this thing. That he wanted it, on some level. He’d wanted it then and he wanted it now. And there was a flicker of remorse nibbling at his soul that he knew he would always secretly regret the way it had played out.
    Goat opened Skype and punched in the number for Billy’s satellite phone. But a message window popped up: NO SIGNAL .
    He tried it again, making sure he got the number right.
    Same message.
    “Oh, shit…” he murmured.
    The last message from Billy said they were going to take the infected outside. Since then … nothing. What was going on? Had they gotten to him? Had the helicopters come back?
    Goat’s fears said yes , but his gut told him no . There was something wrong, but he didn’t think Billy was dead.
    Not yet.
    He was, however, absolutely positive that the government was screwing around. That it was responsible for this silence.
    Cursing under his breath, Goat turned toward the counter to ask the barista if the router was down. Headlights flashed in his eyes as a car pulled into the lot. Goat flicked a glance through the window. A metallic green Nissan Cube. Ugly. Same make and color as the one he’d seen parked in front of the house of Homer Gibbon’s old Aunt Selma. It made him think of that, and how it all started.
    Then his mind ground to a halt as the driver’s door opened and a man got out.
    A tall