Act X

Monday.

About fifteen minutes into first period we had a fire drill.  The teacher looked confused, but then shrugged it off and we all got up for the door.  I was in the back corner of the room, and so I was last in line.  Then, with half the class already out the door, I heard something odd nestled in with the screeching alarm.

POP POP POP POP POP, followed closely behind by another POP POP POP POP POP.

“What was that?” the kid in front of me said.

It kept coming, POP POP, POP POP POP POP, POP POP POP, POP POP POP.

I thought the alarm was busted, like maybe the speaker had blown; I didn’t think anything of it at first.

My teacher, Mr. Hixon, reached his arm out and slammed, literally slammed three students back into the classroom at once, throwing them all to the floor.  Then he reached out into the hall, grabbing kids and yanking them into the room.  “INSIDE!  INSIDE!  INSIDE!”

Then in the distance I heard screaming.  So there was an actual fire, then.

POP POP POP POP POP POP POP

The screams gnawed at my soul.

POP

It was much louder than the alarm that time; it sounded like some loud crack in the walkway just above our classroom.  Outside people started running frantically in every direction.

“FUCK!” I heard someone yell.

“What’s going on?” someone asked.

“Senior prank,” was offered up.

This sure was an effective prank because from what I could see in the morning dusk outside there was panic all around.  Suddenly I thought of Sara and a jolt of terror reverberated throughout my body.  I heard another loud crack, and watched through the window as a guy running across the parking lot fell to the ground.

He probably tripped.

Right?

Mr. Hixon slammed the door closed and checked the lock three times.

“What’s going on?”

“Get down!  Over by the window.  NOW!”

“It’s just a prank.”

“NOW!”

Something about his face made me wonder.  Slowly, kids started to obey.  Except Colin.  Colin just sat casually under a desk.

“Over here!” Mr Hixon insisted.

“What’s the big deal?”

POP POP POP POP

Someone screamed.  A high-pitched girly scream.

POP POP POP

With that, Colin’s face turned white, and he walked over to where the rest of us were stooped down.  I can still feel that grinding fire alarm in my ears.

The window sat on a shelf about three feet from the floor, and he was trying to push us all to that corner, on the wall just beneath the window.  We did.  I was still confused as to why, but my heart was thundering no less.  So for the first time all year, everyone was listening to the teacher.  Then as we all huddled up into a mass of bodies close to the wall crouching as best we could below the window sill, he drew the blinds and shut off the lights.  It was dark but for purple hues seeping through the edge of the blinds.

CRACK CRACK

A boy next to me jumped at the noise.  It sounded like it was getting closer; like someone had set off a couple of M-80s down by the cafeteria.  Or maybe the construction crew was using dynamite to dig a tunnel for the school’s subway system.  Or maybe there was a bear jumping up and down on the rafters.  Or maybe there was a car outside that really, really needed a new muffler.

I heard someone next to me.  “Oh God, please no, oh God no…”

“Shut up!” someone said.  Mr. Hixon was standing behind the door with his foot by the jamb, looking at us with one finger over his lips.

POP POP POP it came again.  Muffled, but the echoes carried down the hall followed by a distant scream.

“All of you,” he said quietly but firmly, “keep absolutely quiet.  Don’t move.  Kyle, get down more.  Keep your fingers over your lips and don’t make a sound.”

But I needed to get to Sara right away.  I jumped up and made for the door.  Mr. Hixon pushed me back so hard I knocked my head on the floor.  I tried to get up again.

“Hold him down!”

“Let me go!” I yelled.

“QUIET!”

I felt heavy arms bar me from getting up, and next thing someone stuffed a sleeve in my mouth.  But I needed to get to Sara.  I needed to make sure she was alright.

Footsteps ran by our classroom.  Then in the next moment, there was a pounding thud on the door to the classroom adjacent to ours, followed by more pounding.  “LET ME IN!  LET ME IN!  OH GOD PLEASE LET ME IN!”

I looked at Mr. Hixon.  He shook his head and wore an expression as though he was about to cry.  The pounding then came to our door.  “HELP ME!”

CRACK CRACK CRACK

Then silence.

That was loud.  I froze.  I looked around at those huddled up with me.  I was surrounded by students, some I barely knew, others I sorta knew.  Kyle was looking at me with terror in his eyes as his whole body shook.  He swallowed.  I felt something tap my arm.  I turned to see a girl holding her finger to her lips.  She was tapping everyone to show them the same.  And we all held our fingers to our lips.

A thud was heard from down the hall.

Sara.

I got out my phone.  No messages.  I texted her.

Are you OK?

CRACK CRACK CRACK CRACK CRACK

That shit was loud.  The thunder echoed off the concrete walkway and seeped into the filaments of my bones, and suddenly my skin felt cold all over.

“Oh my GOD!  Oh my GOD!”

“Shush!” someone else said, taking hold of his arm.  The response was the boy squished his lips together and winced as in pain.  Someone else laid a hand on his back and stroked him some.  It seemed to help.

I heard another thud, followed by someone, sounded like someone testing the room next door.

“Is that the police?” I heard a whisper.

I shook my head.  It couldn’t be.  A hand was placed over the kid’s mouth and we all held our breaths.

CRACK CRACK CRACK, CRACK CRACK CRACK CRACK, CRACK CRACK CRACK

The terrible sound was intermixed with glass being punched through.  I looked up at Mr. Hixon.  He stood with his back to the door as though hoping to barricade the thing.  He wore on his face a look of stone.  He watched us all, directing us to hunch down lower, lower, all the while holding one finger to his lips.

“…oh God, Jesus…”

The handle of our door shook.

Luckily, the door to our classroom was ten-thousand pounds of solid graphene-reinforced trimanthium-adamantium alloy.  There would be no getting through that.

“I’m going to die,” some guy whined.  “I’m going to die…”

Someone slapped his head and made him put a finger to his lips, and I remember thinking, that’s a rather self-centric way of looking at the situation.  Had he said something like ‘we’re all going to die,’ that would have shown some empathy for the collective, don’t you think?

What followed was in slow motion.  A sharp pop of glass came through the window, and a desk erupted in a hail of splinters.  I could no longer hear the thunder, but when I play it back in my mind I play it to the Lullaby from Gayane.  Another object whizzed by overhead, shattering a wooden desk in the middle of the classroom, and then another.  I felt my heart striking against my bones and squeezed tight onto someone’s arm while someone else held mine.  I checked my classmates, all of whom crouched down low as we could beneath that window.  More came through.  I felt a piece of something fall on top of my shoulders.  Maybe it was a piece of glass.  A piece of black plastic flew off Mr. Hixon’s computer monitor and twisted around as it did a Grand Jeté up into the sky.  More desks jumped; a rain of small objects tapped all over my back to the sound of glass being abused.  It felt surreal, watching the desks dance.  Watching wood chips sprayed into the air.  It came that the blinds were being torn so that the room was beginning to lighten up from a shroud of dark purple to a lighter shade of magenta.  I tried to lower my body as best I could and keep quiet.

And then it stopped.

Everyone shook while the acrid smell of spent fireworks seeped in through the window remains. 

A kid took a deep breath.  More fingers covered more mouths.

Outside, I heard a click, followed by some piece of metal clanging on the sidewalk.

Followed by another click.  Followed by another door handle being wiggled around.  Mr. Hixon shook his head rapidly, still holding a finger to his mouth.

CRACK CRACK CRACK accompanied by more broken glass.

A girl let out a high-pitched scream in the classroom next door.

CRACK CRACK CRACK CRACK CRACK

The cries began.  Not even the thunder echoing off the concrete could deafen the chorus of screams that followed.

CRACK CRACK CRACK CRACK CRACK CRACK CRACK

I watched another student, a wrestler and a tough guy he was, with tears falling down his cheeks.  One person’s screams shifted into cries of pain, while another screamer paused to take a deep breath and scream some more.

CRACK CRACK CRACK

Then the sobbing began.  Next door.  I looked at my wrestler friend and held one finger over my mouth.  He scanned his eyes up and down my face, and then lifted a finger to his mouth.  Sobs of pain and agony seeped through the walls interrupted by a whole slew of glass being smashed to bits, followed by the sound of blinds being torn apart.

“No… no… please, no…” someone whinnied.  Begged.

“God, no…” someone else interrupted.

CRACK CRACK CRACK CRACK CRACK CRACK CRACK CRACK CRACK

Followed by more terrible screams.

CRACK CRACK CRACK

And more.  Then a click.  Then something metal clanged on the floor.

I checked my phone.  No messages.  I texted Sara again.

Where are you?

I looked up.

The blinds were shredded.  Triangles of blue and purple and little punches dotted my vision as the cold air slipped between the holes in the glass.  Behind me, shattered remains of the desk I once took notes in lay strewn across the floor.  Many desks.  Broken.

My whole body shook.

Sara was certified in first aid, CPR, and a whole bunch of other stuff.  When she’d told my mom her ambition was to be a first responder, she wasn’t kidding.  I checked my phone again.  No messages.  I checked the settings to make sure it was still on vibrate.  I imagined her outside somewhere, probably in the wake of this madness, tying up students as they bled out and holding their bodies together for one last shot at life.

“Forceps!” she commanded.  I couldn’t see who handed them to her.

“Sutures!”

“Give me 20 cc’s of Atrazine!  STAT!”

She leaned over the boy.  “You’re going to be alright.  NEXT!”

Clearly, she was too busy to check her phone.

“I’m safe,” I told her.  “You take care of yourself, OK?”

She didn’t look up.  No, she was stitching up a bullet hole as another kid came back to life in her hands.  When the paramedics came, they were going to see her there, and she was going to tell them, ‘I already got this.  You can go home now.’

POP POP, POP POP POP

That one was somewhat quieter.  It sounded like whoever was moving on to another part of the building.

POP

“Listen,” Mr Hixon whispered to us all.  “At Parkland, the guy came back.  Stay down, stay quiet.  Text your parents, and get comfortable.”

Shit.  Mom and dad.  Where were they, and did they even know what was going on?

Mom there’s a shooter at school.

“Oh God!” one of my peers cried, lifting up a fist and biting down as his phone dropped to the floor; he left his last incoming message open.

Your brother was hit.

Then a message came from my mom.

WTF!!!

WHERE ARE YOU?

ARE YOU SAFE?

How bad is it?

Is it still going on?

POP POP POP POP POP

More screams.  Screams generally fell into the high-pitched girly screams, the kind you’d expect to hear at a horror movie, and the terror-inducing guy screams, the kind you don’t hear.  Ever.  Then there were wails.  I heard one next door, in fact.  Over and over I heard someone crying and wailing and slurring out “oh my God, oh my God, oh my God!”

Never heard God mentioned so many times in school.

No prayer in school?  There’s prayer in school, trust me.

POP POP POP

My heart shuddered at that awful sound and my mind went numb.  Maybe running would have been a better idea.  That one came from the hall at the north end of the building.  The shooter was walking towards the gym.  I wasn’t sure why.

My phone buzzed.  Sara.

No, my dad.

Stay down and stay quiet. Hide. For God’s sake stay safe. I’m on my way.

Dad, I’m scared. I haven’t heard from Sara. She’s not answering.

Stupid, of course she’s not answering, she’s busy saving lives.  That was her, right?

“How long do these things last?” a kid asked our teacher.  He was supposed to keep quiet, but someone had to ask.  We all looked.  Every single one of us turned our desperate, terrified faces to Mr. Hixon for the lesson.  He was going to teach us something important.  We wanted to learn.

He first made a forced grimace with a gesture to shush the student who’d broken the silence, then shook his head with a deep breath and whispered his answer.  “Sandy Hook… six minutes… Virginia Tech… two hours.”

“Fuck!”

“Shhh!”

“Do you have an appointment to go to?”

POP POP POP, POP POP POP, POP POP POP POP POP

Another round of screams.  It was distant, maybe they couldn’t hear us whispering on this side of the building.  Next door, the wails came in waves.  Someone would cry and sob, only to scream out, then return to the crying.

“Stay awake!  Stay awake!” I could hear echoing off the concrete walkway, but all I could think was that this person was going to make enough noise to bring the shooter back to our side of the building.

Where are you?

No reply.  I dug through the settings; the ringer was on and I had bars.  I couldn’t find anything to indicate a problem with the network—it’s possible the guy knocked out the cell tower.

What’s going on?

Mom again.

I haven’t heard from Sara.

Don’t do anything stupid. The police are on their way.

Mom I’m scared. I haven’t heard from Sara.

I’m sure she’s fine. Stay hidden. It would break her if you got hurt.

POP POP

Distant.  Muffled.

What if that was her?  Oh God, what if that was her?  What if she was trying to save someone’s life and he came up and saw her and killed her just then?

Where are you?

“Mr. Hixon?” someone whispered.

He looked.  The man looked weary.  He’d painted strength on his face long enough, and it was wearing off.

“I think he got my textbook.  Am I going to get fined for that?”

Poor guy.  First, his eyes bulged into two giant balloons.  Then, he started shaking with laughter as tears streamed down his cheeks.  I started laughing.  I couldn’t help it.  It wasn’t funny.

Another student asked, “do we still have homework tonight?”

Mr Hixon broke down and shook, sliding down the wall onto the floor.  I couldn’t tell if he was laughing or crying.  Probably both.

Then a girl spoke up. “Yeah,” she sobbed, “all that, um… all that work I owe you, it’s over there.”  She pointed to the splintered remains of the classroom rife with the scent of wood chips.  “So I can get credit for it.  Right?”

“Yeah my quiz is there, too,” added another.

We tried to stay positive.  Next door, we could hear the frantic cries of a girl whose voice I didn’t recognize rise and fall as she cried.

“No… no… stay with me.  No.  Stay with me.  Oh God please stay with me.   No!  Stay with me!  Oh God please stay with me!  No!  NO!  STAY WITH ME!  NOOO!”

Where are you?

Someone tapped my arm.  “Say something funny.”

But I couldn’t.  I closed my eyes and all I could see was Sara’s face turning to me in all seriousness.  “Laugh.”

Then Mr Hixon spoke up, wiping his cheeks dry only to wet them some more.  “You make your lesson plans… but there’s all these interruptions.”

We all had a little laugh.  Then we went back to putting our fingers to our lips.

Years passed.

Where are you?

“Dude,” a guy said to me.  He’d been reading my texts this whole time.  “She dropped her phone.  You know?”

“She dropped it?” I said.

“Yeah.  You know, the chaos out there, everybody running.  She probably dropped her phone.”

That made sense.  When you hear things like that in your school, it made sense that things get a little crazy.  Things get dropped, you know?  Left behind.  She was smart enough to just run and not try and go back for something like that.

She dropped her phone.

My phone buzzed.  Sara.

No, Mom.

RUOK?

What’s going on?

I haven’t heard anything for a little while.

Sara?

Nothing.

That hurt.

That hurt a lot.

I regretted saying it as soon as I hit send.  It was wrong.

I think she dropped her phone.

“Emilio’s dead,” a guy announced as a phone screen lit up his face in the still darkness.

“Oh, God…” were the cries that followed.

“Sara?” I said.

“Don’t know anything.”

“How’s your brother?” I asked the other guy.

He tapped away at his phone, and got a reply a moment later.

He’s unconscious.

I think I stopped the bleeding.

He’s going to make it.

Who is this?

It was Sara.  I knew it was her.  It had to be her.  Only she could have saved his brother.

Taylor

Or maybe Taylor.

Names came in.  They came in tweets, texts, just about any app you could think of, names poured in of those who still breathed and those who didn’t.  Sara’s name was not among them.  Someone sent a slave with a name tattooed on his head so that his hair would grow out and no one would know he carried a secret name unless they shaved his head.

It wasn’t Sara’s name, though.

Where are you?

“Listen to this: ‘There’s a gathering outside in the baseball field.  I can’t hear any more shots from here.’”

“Who sent that?”

“Alex.”

Good Alex was alright.  That was good for Alex, right?

“Ask him who’s there?”

Tap, tap, tap.

“He says a lot of people.  Too many to name everyone.”

“Is Sara Templeton there?” I asked.

Tap, tap, tap.

“He doesn’t see her.”

She was still in hiding, probably.  After she dropped her phone.

“He wants to know who’s alive and if any of us saw who the shooter is.”

We all shook our heads.

Tap tap tap.  A part of me wanted to rip Alex’s intestines out and strangle him with them for being so crass as to ask for a roll call of our classroom.  But the other part of me tried to relax; maybe someone in our room had a lover out there wondering if they were safe, and how it might feel to hear their name come from Alex’s merciful lips.

As Shana looked around and added our names to her message, a flash of blue shot through the holes in the destroyed blinds otherwise covering the windows, then a flash of red.  My phone buzzed again; it was Sara.

No, Mom again.

What’s going on?

I think the cops showed up.

“Is it over?”

We all looked up at our fearless teacher, who with a deep breath and trembling fingers, told us, “Just, uh…”

He took a moment to breathe.  We needed him to tell us it was over.  We needed it to be over, and we needed him to tell us.  I needed.

“Just uh… open your books to page 56.  And, uh…”

I tried not to laugh at that one, either.

Outside, I heard footsteps like boots on the concrete.  Sounds of people talking on the radio, saying stuff no normal person can even understand.  I don’t understand how they have these radios that garble up everything you say and make you sound all hazy so that you can’t quite make out what’s being said, and no one can be bothered to invent a better radio.

“Garble garble garble, garble garble static garble, over.”

Followed by a grown man’s voice outside.  “Ten five six, east side of building, in position, over.”  Then he added quietly, “Jesus Christ.”

“Roger that, garble garble, Sara Templeton is alive, garble garble static garble, she skipped first period and went to the movie theatre, garble garble, over.”

“Ten-four, dispatch, that explains why she hasn’t answered her phone… got a black tag… over.”

“Roger dispatch, garble garble static black tag garble static static garble, over.”

“10-4, two double-double skinny four shot three sugar latte, black tag, six double glaze, over.”

“Roger that, garble garble garble static, Sara’s alive, confirmed black tag garble, over.”

“Help!” someone next door screamed.

Sounded like the door was opened.  I braced myself.  I expected to hear another round of crack, crack, crack as the poor souls next door to us fell for the trap.

“Need a medic in 157…” then he said something else, but I couldn’t quite make it out.

Another minute, and someone knocked at our door.  “Police.”

My phone buzzed.  It was Sara.

No, Dad.

I’m here. The police are saying the shooter is dead. Where are you?

Still hiding. Is Sara with you?

I don’t see her but there’s lots of kids here.

Our teacher opened the door and let sunlight in.  There at the threshold was the silhouette of a man in combat gear.  He had a gun on him, and I freaked.  My heart started shooting me before he could.  I sat still, watching this man for hours, hoping that maybe he was like the T-rex and couldn’t see me if I didn’t move.  It was at that moment I knew I was going to die.

Sorry.  We were all going to die.  See, that’s better.  Isn’t it?

“Everybody OK in here?” he said.

“No injuries,” Mr. Hixon told him.

“My knees are hurting,” Angelique replied.  Poor Mr. Hixon just gazed at her in wonder.

“Alright, let’s go.”

And we walked like robots out of the classroom.  As I passed by Officer Crouse’s imposing blue uniform, I studied his stone face closely, sniffing to ascertain if I could pick up Sara’s scent on him somehow, you know, maybe he’d encountered her at some point.  All I could pick up was coffee on his breath.

Outside in the walkway was a kid lying perfectly still in a pool of stage blood.  Male.  He was a good actor, too.  Method.  Very serious; he didn’t move once.  Two more students were taking a nap at the end of the hall, though they’d spilled beet juice on themselves.  I tried to get a closer look, but was corralled instead by another big, meaty cop.

“This way, please,” he said.  I couldn’t tell if Sara was one of them.

My phone buzzed as we walked.  It was her.

Nope.  Mom again.

Whre are you?

We just left the classroom. Have you seen Sara?

No but her mom is here.

In the stairway, there was a concrete wall separating the two flights leading up to the second floor.  A faint splatter of red decorated the otherwise white finish.  I turned around to get a better look at the building.  In the hallway of the floor above us, just outside one of the classrooms was another splatter.  I couldn’t tell if it was her blood.

How the fuck can you tell whose fucking blood it is by fucking looking at it from fifty fucking yards away?  Of course it wasn’t hers; she wasn’t shot!  She’d dropped her phone.  The only reason no one had seen her was because she’d run so far that she was off the campus entirely.  She was hiding under a bridge, probably a mile away.

But as I arrived at the place they called the Containment Zone, I caught a glimpse of her mom outside an ambulance.

She looked inside the vehicle, covered her face, and fell to her knees with a blood-curdling scream.