WE STAYED THERE until late that night. Flipping channels, checking the radio. Every report made a liar out of the previous one. Seventy-five kids dead. A hundred. Two hundred. School security guards machine-gunned. Grenade tossed into the administration office. One of the surviving kids said he heard explosions, gunfire. Then a voice on the PA system telling all the students to get into the gymnasium. A man was standing at the podium, dressed in military fatigues. They all filed inside. The man put some stuff around the door seams. Dropped duffel bags in all the corners. One of the kids screamed. The man raked the row with the machine gun. The kids shut up after that. The ones still alive. The man was shouting at the cops through the bullhorn. Then he ran out. Everything started to blow up. The kid talked in a mechanical voice from his hospital bed. You could hear his doctors arguing with the cops in the background.
The cops were combing through the human wreckage. So far, they hadn't found a single terrorist.
"You think Wesley's going to Hell?" I asked the Prof. He believes in that stuff.
"If he is, the Devil better be ready."
"Amen."