Home Invasion - J. A. Johnstone [55]
She had attended scores of high school football games over the years, sometimes on duty and sometimes not, and that’s what this felt like, she thought as she watched people streaming into the stadium adjacent to the high school campus. There were still some loud, angry voices to be heard, but for the most part people seemed to be calming down, as Alex had hoped would happen. A certain solemnity took hold when people gathered to pray. It made them realize that there were things bigger than this world.
Alex climbed to the top of the bleachers, just below the press box, and looked out over the crowd, searching for any signs of trouble. Thankfully, she didn’t see any. Down at the bottom of the stands, just in front of the first row of seats, a couple of men were setting up a portable public address system. Alex recognized them as the pastors from the local Baptist and Methodist churches. Evidently they were going to use the portable PA, rather than the stadium’s sound system. That was probably so they could walk up and down while they were praying. Alex hadn’t seen too many preachers who were good at standing still, she thought with a faint smile. The spirit moved them.
Standing up high like this, Alex could see for a long way over the flat West Texas landscape. Her gaze followed the state highway toward the county seat. A frown creased her forehead as she saw a lot of headlights coming toward Home. That didn’t have to mean anything, but worry stirred inside her anyway.
She saw her officers standing here and there in the bleachers. The sheriff’s deputies had stayed over in the business district, just in case anything happened there. They were all ready for trouble, but with a crowd this size, and emotions running as high as they were …
Alex didn’t like to think about the sort of things that might happen in circumstances like that.
Her nerves stretched even tighter when she saw a dozen vehicles turn off the highway into the stadium parking lot. The lot wasn’t full, since most of the people had walked here, so the newcomers were able to get in. The sun had set, but enough dusky light remained in the sky for Alex to pick out the shapes of satellite dishes on top of some of the trucks.
The media had arrived.
They had just been biding their time, she realized, waiting for the situation in Home to get tense enough that something might happen. They were like buzzards, she thought, scavengers feeding off human misery. She didn’t want them in her town.
She couldn’t stop them from flocking to tragedy, though. Nobody could. And if they were here only to report, it wouldn’t be so bad. That wouldn’t be the case. They would try to mold and shape the thinking of their viewers according to their own warped perspective on the world, where everything America did was bad, every problem could be solved by raising taxes, and regular people were morons who were so stupid that they needed the federal government to take care of them from the cradle to the grave. That was the media’s version of Utopia, and nothing could shake them from that belief, which they held with a religious fervor that put that of regular Christians to shame. Big government was the left’s religion.
“The reporters are here,” Alex said into her mike as she started down from the top of the bleachers. “Keep your eyes open. I’m going to talk to them.”
She wanted to persuade the news crews to leave people alone while they were praying. It probably wouldn’t do any good, but she felt like she had to try.
Alex reached the bottom of the bleachers, turned and went down a ramp into the area underneath the stands. As she did that, the Baptist minister began leading the crowd in a prayer for Pete McNamara.
The first of the reporters to get set up was coming toward the ramp, carrying a microphone and trailed by her cameraman and a light man. It was the arrogant blonde who had clashed with Jack, Rowdy, and