"Do something for me," Mrs. March said to Land. "Promise me you'll sit by him. Try to keep him from being too scared. He has a weak heart."

Land nodded; before he could speak Hazelwood interrupted. "Then we'll just have to strengthen up that heart a bit," she said, ushering the trembling boy toward the car.

As Land looked back at Mrs. March he wanted to gaze into her eyes and assure her that everything would go all right, whether it was true or not, but found that he couldn't do it.

~

The huge chain-link fence encircling Calgary was intended to keep the zombies out, which it did, but it also served to keep the people in. The rule of law didn't need to enforce this, for few wanted to leave. Officers waived Sgt. Hazelwood's transport through the military checkpoint at the city's north gate. They continued down the vacant Deerfoot Trail, bound for the Saddledome. In the distance Calgary's downtown was silhouetted against the morning sky, postcard pristine, like a snapshot from Land's childhood.

Paul was quiet the entire time. His parents certainly taught him to avoid talking to anyone in a uniform. Land felt like he was ferrying a prisoner to an execution. He always hated this day, the worst of any school year. Nothing he'd seen up in Alaska bothered him half as much as the sight of ten thousand schoolchildren screaming for gore.

Yellow school buses dotted the Saddledome's parking lot, and Hazelwood weaved through the crowds of kids before they found Mr. Land's grade-seven class. Land hoped they'd arrive first, to spare Paul the humiliation of arriving under military escort, but no such luck. Built for the 1988 Olympics, the Saddledome had served for years as sports arena and concert venue. Now the military had appropriated it and remade it into their modern-day Coliseum.

"You get out here," Hazelwood said. "I'll go park in the barracks and join you inside."

"What?" Land said. "Isn't your duty here finished?"

"No." The sergeant flashed him an unreadable smile. "I'm with you for the whole day."

Land coughed in disgust. She probably thought he'd let Paul slip away from the show at the first occasion. She was probably right.

The rest of the class caught sight of them as they stepped out of the military vehicle. Land saw Bruce Tomasino say something to Jason Barrows, and they sent their whispers all along the line.

"Don't worry about them, Paul," Land said softly. "Just take your place in the line."

His student dutifully shuffled over to the uneven row of students. Land addressed them: "I don't want to see any shoving or shouting. When we get the signal, I want us to go in a straight line inside and take our seats. Any questions?"

"I got a question," asked chubby Jimmy Schwab. "Is it true... I mean, we heard a rumor that Zombie Bob will be here."

Please, no,Land thought. That would make it even worse; the presence of a TV celebrity would change this field trip from a military demonstration to a rock concert. Robert Smith Harding went with a camera crew behind the lines in lost cities and in infested countryside, found zombies and inevitably killed them in daredevil ways. His weapons of choice ranged from a jackhammer to a katana. The kids loved him, wore his picture, talked about him constantly. Land watched Paul's face grow grimmer still at this news.

A whistle blew somewhere across the parking lot, and the rows of students started proceeding up the concrete stairs and into the Saddledome itself. A uniformed officer waved Land's class ahead, and he took up the end of the line to watch them keep their course. Amid all the noise of kids gabbing away, he could barely hear Bruce and Jason talking about Paul. He made out one sentence: "That corpse-hugger's going to wet his pants when he sees this."

Land was always impressed by how little the Saddledome had changed since his childhood. This wasn't a real surprise; though the military owned it now, it was still a sports arena of sorts. The floors were still sticky and the plastic seats still painful. The Jumbotron was still there too, leftover from hockey games. Now it flashed messages like "ENJOY THE SHOW" and "THIS IS FOR YOU KIDS."

The most visible changes were the sideboards. The protective glass now went up much higher than in the old days, and they needed to be cleaned of splattered blood and brain meat nightly. As usual, the arena was covered with a layer of freshly tilled dirt. At one end there was a raised platform with a few microphones, and at the other there was a black velvet drape, which hid the zombie cage. A trained crew with cattle prods were ready to send the zombies into the arena on cue.

When the students took their seats, Land called for Paul to come sit with him by the aisle. He'd wished he could have done this more subtly----Paul didn't need to be a teacher's pet on top of a zombie-lover----however, he did agree to sit with the boy. As the other students chatted away, he asked Paul: "What do you think of all this?"

"I don't know," the boy said. "I've never been anywhere like this before."

"Your parents didn't want you to come here," Land said. "You know that."

"But they made you get me."

Land nodded. "The military thinks it's important that you be here."

"Why?"

The question caught Land by surprise. It was a good question----why? Why did one child deserve all this special attention? He stammered, searching for an answer, before one was provided.

"Because someday you'll be called to the service, and we think it's best you know what it's all about." Sgt. Hazelwood stood in the aisle, grinning down on them both. She had changed from her green field outfit into a brown dress uniform that accentuated her curves.

That's not a real answer,Land though, but he couldn't say anything here.

"Got room for one more?" Hazelwood asked.

Land looked at the empty seat next to him and tried to think of an excuse to keep her from sitting there, but could not. "Sure," he said. "Have a seat."

"No." She shook her head. "You sit there, and I'll sit on the other side of Paul."

Land wanted to protest but thought better of it. He stood, and as she slipped past he felt her body against his, her holstered pistol rubbing against his thigh.

She took her place next to the boy and smiled at him. "Your parents don't let you have a TV, do they?" she asked.

Paul shook his head.

"Then you don't know who Zombie Bob is?"

"Well, I know who he is because the other kids..."

"Oh good," she said. "It just so happens that I'm a friend of Bob's, and after the show I could take you to meet him backstage."

"Well," said Paul, "I don't really know if..."

"Just you, out of all these kids." She gestured at the thousands of schoolchildren around them. "That could really help you could make friends, Paul. They'll want to know you for sure after that."

Land shot her a disapproving look, but she only grinned. Fortunately, the lights began to dim. He heard Hazelwood whisper "We'll talk about this later" as a hush settled over the Saddledome.

A spotlight sprang into life, illuminating a lone figure on the platform. It was a silver-haired man in a brown dress uniform, metals dangling at his pocket. His image appeared a thousand times larger on the Jumbotron above.

"Howdy, kids," he said. "I'm Colonel Patrick Simonds. I recently got back from directing the troops on the coast, and the top brass said to me, 'Pat, you've done such a great job in Vancouver. When you get back, just you name it and it's yours.' And I said, 'I want to be the one who talks to the kids at the Saddledome."