Principal Myers was waiting in her office. Her chic, cream-coloured business suit looked out of place with her Sally Jessy Raphael, Coke-bottle glasses that were barely a shade redder than her short curly hair. She held a manila file in her hands, a thick one – Courtney’s student file, no doubt – and upon seeing Striker, she offered a forced smile.

He cleared his throat. ‘I heard you needed tickets to the Policeman’s Ball,’ he joked, and when she didn’t laugh, he dropped the act. ‘Oh Christ, Caroline, what’s she done this time?’

‘What do you think she’s done?’ the Principal responded. ‘She skipped out. Again. Fifth time this month.’

Striker felt his jaw tighten. ‘Any ideas where she went? Or who she was with?’

Before the woman could respond, a series of loud bangs came from somewhere down the hall, near the school’s assembly hall or cafeteria. Principal Meyers stiffened at the sound like she’d been slapped.

‘Halloween is two days away,’ she said, ‘and I can’t wait till it’s over. All day long, the firecrackers. They never stop.’

As she finished speaking, another series of explosions rocked the room. This time, the sounds made Striker stop cold. The explosions were sharp – like the crack of a bullwhip.

Ka-POW—Ka-POW.

Ka-POW—Ka-POW—Ka-POW.

He spun around and found Felicia in the doorway. One look at her hard expression and he knew he’d heard it right.

Not firecrackers.

Gunfire.

Something heavy and automatic.

Two

‘Jesus Christ, we got an Active Shooter.’ Striker turned to Principal Myers. ‘Call it in, now!’

But she just stood there with a look of disbelief on her face. Striker snatched up the phone, dialled 911 and thrust the receiver into her hand.

‘Tell them we got a shooter in the school!’

He reached into his shoulder-holster, left side, and found the grip of his gun. Sig Sauer, forty cal. Twelve rounds in the mag, plus one in the chamber. He looked at Felicia, saw that she had already drawn her gun, and gave her the nod.

‘On me,’ he said.

‘Just go.’

With his partner at his side, Striker aimed his gun to the low ready and left the cover of the office. He swung into the hall. Kept close to the wall. Turned right at the first corner. Stared down the long corridor.

For the briefest of moments, there was only silence. No gunfire. No explosions. No screaming. Just nothing. And everything felt oddly surreal. Previous nightmare incidents flooded him – the Active Shooter situations everyone had seen on their TV screens a million times:

Dunblane.

Virginia Tech.

Columbine.

But St Patrick’s High?

Somehow it didn’t ring true for this peaceful community. He wondered if he’d heard the noise wrong. After all, it was his first day back to work in six months. Maybe he was out of sync. A little rusty. Maybe—

The explosion echoed through the hall, killing Striker’s doubts. The blasts were deep-based, heavy enough to feel in his bones. They resonated with power. Combat shotgun. Every cop’s worst nightmare in a close-quarters gun battle.

And it sounded close.

Striker looked at Felicia. ‘Shoot on sight.’

‘Take left, I got right,’ was all she said.

So Striker took left, and together, the two of them swept down the hallway, clearing each room as they went. They’d barely turned the first corner when they heard the screams – high-pitched, frantic wails.

Just ahead. On the left.

The cafeteria.

Striker checked his grip on the Sig and took aim on the double doors. They were wooden, painted in a cheap latex blue, and had inset wired-windows. As if on cue, the doors swung open and teenage kids came running out. Streams of them. Dressed as Iron Men and Jack Sparrows and cheerleaders and princesses. They were screaming. Crying. Hysterical. One girl, a small blonde all of fifteen, stumbled out. Her white school shirt was splattered with blood and she had peed down her legs. She wobbled towards them on clumsy feet, stopped, and found Striker’s eyes.

‘They’re shooting. They’re killing everyone . . .’

Her left knee buckled and she collapsed, landing face down on the beige tiles of the hallway floor. Striker looked down at her twitching body, saw the red meaty exit wounds on her back.

Hydra-Shok rounds.

‘Oh Jesus Christ!’ Felicia gasped.

She went for the girl, but came to an abrupt halt when the firing started again. Striker yanked her back. Bullets exploded through the steel-wired glass of the cafeteria doors, sending glass and steel fragments everywhere.

‘Down, stay down!’ Striker ordered.

A second later, when the shooting lulled, he gripped Felicia’s shoulder, then pointed to the door on the far side. She nodded her understanding, and the two of them took sides. Once set, Striker readied his gun, eased open the nearest door and scanned inside the cafeteria for the gunman. To his horror, he didn’t find one.

He found three.

Three

Gunsmoke owned the cafeteria. It floated through the air in thin waves. The greyness brought with it the stink of burned gunpowder. And urine, and blood, and shit.

The smell of fear.

Striker blocked it all out. With beads of sweat rolling under his collar, he scanned the rest of the cafeteria for any other immediate threats, found none, then focused on the ones he had already located.

Three gunmen. Thin builds, average height. Instinct told him they were males, but it was impossible to tell. They were all dressed alike. Black baggy cargo pants. Black hoodies. And hockey masks – one white, one black, one red.

A scene from a real-life nightmare.

The sighting damn near froze Striker. He’d expected to find one gunman, two at the most. But definitely not three. He scanned the corners of the room. Teenage kids were trapped everywhere. Balled up on the floor. Huddled beneath tables. Sprawled out behind the serving counters. Many of them were already dead.

Or dying.

One girl, dressed as a pixie, lay face down on the floor, a stone’s throw from the entrance doors. Redness surrounded her, spilled all over the beige floor tiles. At first glance, Striker was shaken. The girl looked a lot like Courtney – long, straight, auburn hair; creamy skin; lean build – and he’d almost lost control, forgotten his training and run from cover to her side. But then a horrible relief spilled through him; his daughter wasn’t in school today.

This girl was someone else’s daughter.

Numbness overtook him. The girl was dead – she had to be, with that much blood lost. But then she shifted. Lifted her head. Looked at him through empty, milky eyes.

‘Help me,’ she got out.

She was directly in the gunmen’s path.

Striker felt his stomach rise against him, fought it down. Every second wasted meant another dead child. He forced his eyes away from the girl and found the closest of the three gunmen – the one with the black hockey mask. He had another kid pinned in the corner of the room, behind the serving line entrance. He was pointing a machine gun at the boy. Yelling things Striker couldn’t make out. Then suddenly, he stopped yelling, angled his head towards Striker and raised the machine gun.

‘Down, down, down!’ Striker yelled to Felicia. ‘He’s got an AK!’ He ducked low and right, taking cover behind the nearest wall, and a series of explosions echoed like cannon-fire in the small room. Striker didn’t hesitate. He waited for the lull in gunfire, peered around the cafeteria doors, located Black Mask—

And blasted off three shots.