In the Teeth of Terror: Horror and Heroes of Beslan

He ordered her to kneel.

"No," she said.

"Get on your knees," he said.

"No."

The terrorist raised his AK-47 and pressed the muzzle against her forehead.

She brushed it aside. "What kind of spectacle are you playing here?" she said.

The other hostages watched, stunned, certain that Larisa would be shot, just like the man whose wounds she'd tended. But another terrorist stepped forward and told her to sit down and shut up.

Two days later, when the terrorists' bombs exploded in the gym, killing scores of hostages, Larisa survived with only minor wounds. A few hours later, she lived to see her captors make their last stand against Russian commandos in the cafeteria. Lying on the floor with her children, as both sides fired over them, she watched as a dying terrorist threw a grenade at a commando. It flew over her, then fell to the floor and bounced. She squeezed her children beneath her, absorbing the blast with her body. She saved her kids, but the grenade blew off much of her face.

As of April, Chivers writes, she had endured 14 surgeries and was awaiting more.

Perhaps the most amazing story is the saga of a man named Karen Mdinaradze. A cameraman for a local soccer team, Karen was hired to videotape the school's opening ceremony. It turned out to be the unluckiest -- and the luckiest -- experience of his life.

Karen happened to be standing near one of the female terrorists when the bomb she was wearing exploded. It ripped off her head and sent shrapnel flying. But Karen was shielded from the blast by a man who was standing between him and the explosion. That man died; Karen was wounded.

Terrorists took him and other wounded men to a classroom where dead hostages were piled on the floor. One terrorist ordered the wounded men to lie down. Another fired, emptying his rifle into the wounded men. All were killed except Karen, who was miraculously unhurt.

The terrorists left, then returned with two hostages and ordered them to throw the corpses out the window of the second-floor room. When they got to Karen, he stood up. He expected to be shot.

He wasn't. "You walk under Allah," the stunned terrorist said, and he sent Karen back to the gym.

Karen was unconscious when the bombs in the gym exploded. "He woke, heard moaning and found himself surrounded by gore," Chivers writes. "Human remains had rained down; two girls near him were covered by a rope of intestines."

Karen saw hostages escaping through a hole the bombs had blown in the gym wall. He ran, too, scurrying to safety through a rain of gunfire, clutching a little boy in his arms.

"The School" is a strange, shocking, surreal story. It'll make a great movie. But don't wait for that. Read the article.