Apocalypse Atlanta by David Rogers

she broke past the last vehicle and reached the front walk of the school, she was running, dragging Candice alongside her with an iron grip.  Her daughter didn’t say a word, merely stumbled along next to her.
    When Jessica finally got a clear view of the front doors of the high school, she stopped in shock, her hand flying to her mouth in horror.  Nearly everyone there had blood on them, and more was visible on the concrete, on the grass, on the doors.  There was a knot of students in the pair of double doors that comprised the school’s front entrance, all of them trying to get out.  None of them were screaming, or yelling, or showing any emotion at all.  Every child’s face that she could see looked blank and empty.
    That would have been strange enough, with everything that was happening, but what made it worse was when they didn’t react, at all, when they were shot.  A pair of police, a male and female officer, were standing almost side by side about ten feet away from the doors, their pistols out and pointing at the students.  They were shooting into the crowd of students, with two more police behind them pointing guns at fire and medical personnel, presumably to hold everyone else back and give their fellows room to aim at and shoot the kids.
    Jessica saw half a dozen students were already on the ground, in the doorways and in front of the doors, but they were still moving.  As she watched, more were staggering and falling as bullets slammed into them, knocking them down.  The police were shooting low, shooting them in the legs, she saw.  None of the wounded students seemed to even notice their injuries, apart from the physical effects of losing use of a limb.
    They were trying to crawl forward, even as other students walked past and on top of them.  Some of those trying to walk were falling as their legs and feet caught or turned on the obstacles formed by their classmates.  Those that merely fell, without being shot, were trying to get to their feet.  And some of those were being knocked aside as more students walked past and into them, knocking them down again.
    As bad as that was, as unreal as it seemed, Jessica saw blood on the faces of nearly every kid trying to get out of the school.  Not smears of blood on the cheeks and forehead, like someone who’d been splattered, or who’d wiped a wounded arm or shoulder across their face.
    No, the blood was on, in, their mouths.  She remembered the elementary school, where that little girl had been chewing on a fireman’s arm, and what Alicia had just told her.  She couldn’t help the dazed, cold feeling that paralyzed her as she stared at the front of the high school.
    Candice made a whimpering sound, and Jessica looked down as she suddenly remembered her youngest daughter.  The girl’s face was bone white, and her lower lip was trembling.  More shots were fired, and Candice flinched violently as if they were hitting her.  Her eyes, wider than they’d been even over the past few minutes, more than they’d been back at the elementary school, were fixed on what was happening at the high school entrance.
    That jolted Jessica into action, her mother’s instincts taking over and giving her a purpose.  She reached and grabbed, turning and pulling Candice to face her, putting her back to the scene.  Her daughter buried her head in Jessica’s stomach, and she wrapped her free arm around her mother.  Her other hand clung to Jessica’s like a claw, leaving Jessica with only one hand to stroke through Candice’s hair.  Jessica could feel the girl shaking, crying, and Jessica hugged her tighter as she looked back up.
    The shouting was coming from the officers who were pointing their weapons at the rescuers, and from those who were being threatened.  She focused on the voices, trying to pick them out through the continued sound of shots, and the background of idling engines and the other people in the school parking lot.
    Even as people shouted