Tom Scott and Gordon Martin had driven ambulances over half the roads of Nebraska in the six years since they’d started, and were hardened, prepared for almost anything—but never for driving into Cornwall that late July afternoon.

There were bodies all over. A couple of cars had crashed, but that was only part of it. People lay all over the place, in odd positions. Inside the cafe, hamburgers were frying to a crisp while customers sat motionless in the booths; the cook, fallen onto the grill still clutching a spatula, was frying too. Down at the service station a stream of gasoline trickled into the street as an attendant, leaning against a car as unmoving as the driver behind the wheel, continued to pump gas into a tank that had obviously been full a long time.

“Jesus God!” Scott reached for the radio. “This is Unit Six to dispatch,” he said, trying to sound calm and businesslike.

“Dispatch, go ahead Six.” A woman’s cool, professional tones came back at him.

“We—I—I don’t know how to tell you. Get everybody you can over to Cornwall, full protective gear, epidemic precautions. Everybody in this whole damned town’s paralyzed or dead!”

“Say again?” The tone was not disbelieving; it was the sound of someone who was sure she’d misunderstood.

“I said the whole town’s frozen stiff, damn it!” he almost screamed, feeling the fear rise within him. “We got some kind of disease or poison gas or something here—and I’m right in the middle of it!”

Within minutes four doctors were airlifted to Cornwall by State Police helicopters; troopers blocked the entrances and exits to the town except for emergency vehicles. It was a totally unprecedented thing, and there were no contingency plans for it, but they acted swiftly and effectively, as competent professionals.