Vampire's Day (Book 1): Epicenter Read Online Free Page B

children would quickly become unmanageable, she knew this well. But now she just needed silence to hear what was said on the radio. She didn’ t want to make it too loud, so that all the school bus passengers could hear it. On the radio they were talking about the riots, covering block by block, reporting looting, arson, accidents, shooting, talking about something totally wild.
    “Miss Gloria, look! They’re shooting, there’s a shooting on my street! Look!”
    A black boy with braces on his teeth jumped out of seat without permission, ran up to her and handed a phone with a big screen. She wanted to scream at him, so that he would return to his seat, but didn’t do so, seeing that he wanted to show her. She recognized the place – she was there recently when driving this boy and two other passengers. There was a familiar snack-bar, where she bought noodles with pork a couple of times. Now in front of the snack-bar was a police car with flashing lights and broken windows, the front wheel punctured. Behind the car were a cop and a civilian, the cop with a revolver, and the civilian with a shotgun. The picture isn’t great, unknown operator takes on the phone, leaning around the corne r .
    “Miss Gloria, look what they are showing on TV!”
    “I need to go home, urgently!”
    “There's a war, and…”
    “SILENT! Go back to your seats and shut up!”
    Restoring order, Miss Gloria looked ahead at the police, at other drivers running to the cops and yelling. For a moment she also wanted to be there, finding out from the men in the force what was happening and what to do, but this weakness passed. The driver must not leave the bus; she was responsible for the children.
    The Ark passengers clung to their phones, and she listened to the radio at full volume, switching from one station to another. There was panic in the air - screams, gunshots, crashing and banging, orders and cries for help. She remembered once seeing a movie about a nuclear war, and panic in the doomed city, but that was a movie, and the panic and shooting somewhere behind the Ark was real. She tried to see in the rearview mirror what was going on, but couldn’t see anything, just running people and cars, trapped in a traffic jam and making frantic attempts to escape. She made another call to the dispatcher, but there was no answer. Ahead a cop fell to the asphalt with a bullet in the head.
    “Hell!”
    The Ark engine roared like a tiger, but even this wasn’t loud enough to drown out Miss Gloria’s commanding voice.
    “HOLD ON!”
    She had a racing game on her computer in which she could drive a variety of cars and violate traffic rules as she wished. Miss Gloria sometimes played by driving a digital equivalent of the Ark, pushing cars and crushing pedestrians under the wheels with vindictive pleasure. The game also simulated a variety of emergency situations. A few days back, she had played a similar case where she also had to get out of a traffic jam. It was time to try the maneuver in the real world.
    She turned the Ark, sliding out of the way of an abandoned Lexus and slowly coming up on the curb. The large black wheels crushed the green lawn and the horn scared running people. A small bullet hole appeared on the windshield, but she has no time to look around to see if anyone had been hurt. It is time to get out of there.

16. Operations Centre
     
    “Time?”
    “Two minutes, ten seconds. Right on schedule.”
    Two men, black and white, carefully look on the big screen, where a fat black man could be seen lying on the floor in a pool of his own blood, his arms and legs twitching. Behind him were a few more bodies covered in blood, also struggling in their death throes.
    “Two minutes, forty-five.”
    The convulsions weakened with each passing second; fingertips made their last few movements and froze. Finally there was a cessation of breathing, and heart failure.
    “Two minutes and fifty-five. Flat-line.”
    “Ten, nine, eight, seven,