‘Thanks,’ said Erica.
‘I think she’ll be out the rest of the week,’ Lynn added. ‘She’s pretty sick.’
‘Oh, okay,’ said Erica, sorting through the plans Mrs Miller had sent her. ‘Thank you, Miss LaForge.’ First names were fine at this school, but Erica did not need, or want, people to know her that well, so maintained a friendly, but slightly aloof manner.
The janitor, Mr Swan, was ambling down the hall, his gait slightly hitched from the prosthetic leg he’d earned in Vietnam. He was carrying some fluorescent replacement bulbs, wearing a worn leather tool belt around his waist, as he dodged children running for their classes.
‘Slow down,’ he admonished, ‘or someone’s gonna get hurt.’
‘Hey, Mr Swan,’ said Erica. ‘How are you today?’
‘Oh, hi, Erica,’ replied the old handyman, beaming. ‘Couldn’t be better. And how are you?’
‘I’m very well,’ she said.
‘Good, good, good. Well, have a great day, young lady,’ he said, grinning, a tooth missing from his smile.
Erica continued to class. She had about eight minutes to prepare for the day – not nearly enough time – before the children started pouring in. Many of them were children of Guatemalan field workers, or welfare kids, their tattered second-hand clothes hanging from their thin frames like battle flags. She welcomed the third graders, and told them Mrs Miller was still sick. They were going to make jack-o’-lanterns today, with construction paper and paste. But, first, there was a reading lesson they needed to finish: The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.
‘You’ll like it,’ Erica promised. ‘It’s scary.’
After a few moans and groans and shuffling of papers and books, pencils being sharpened and whispers hushed, the children fell silent and began reading to themselves.
Erica was in the back of the room, looking for the orange construction paper that was supposed to be in the closet, when she heard the first popping sounds. Firecrackers? Inside the school, or from the nearby woods? It was 8:20 a.m.
One of the little boys in the class asked, ‘is that fireworks?’
More popping sounds.
Erica knew, now, they weren’t firecrackers. Acoustic shadows, she thought. That’s what he had called them. She went to the window near her desk and looked out through the blinds, sweat breaking out on her neck. The school was in the shape of a giant ‘U’, so the view from any window yielded a view of the other side of the building. She caught a glimpse of a man dressed in black, suited up like a SWAT team member, carrying an assault rifle, bands of ammo wrapped around his torso, pistols on his belt. A late model van was parked in the pick-up lane in the parking lot, its doors left open, puffs of oily smoke coming from the tailpipe.
‘No,’ Erica said to no one, her heart now in her throat. ‘Not again.’
‘What do you see, Ms. Weisz?’ asked Rachel, a little girl with an almost comical mop of blonde curls.
Suddenly, there was a sound of shattering glass, more popping sounds getting louder. And screams. Erica froze, considering her options; her training had never taught her how to protect anyone other than herself. Now, she wasn’t sure she could even do that.
The PA system came on. The class stared at the old box speaker on the wall as it brought them terrifying noises. There was a humming, then the sounds of things banging and shuffling. A rough voice, indistinguishable, then Dr Montessi’s voice, pleading. ‘Please don’t hurt the children.’
‘We’re not going to hurt them,’ declared a high-pitched, male voice that ended with hysterical laughter. ‘We’re going to kill them!’
‘Just kill them,’ said another voice, calmer, in control, and the shooting resumed. Rapid and, loud, blam, blam, blam. The firecracker sounds replaced by unmistakable, up close, booming gun blasts.
Then silence. A groan. The meaty sound of a body hitting the floor, hard. And the gun blasts started again. A door slammed. Steps growing fainter. Silence.
They’re coming here, Erica thought, fear briefly immobilizing her. Inside her chest, her heart beat so fast she thought it might burst. The children stared at her, quietly expecting something, but Erica’s eyes locked on Rachel’s. The little girl’s lips began to quiver, and a tear sneaked down her cheek. More kids began to sob. ‘I’m scared,’ said one of them. One little girl urinated as she sat at her desk, crying silently, a puddle forming at her feet. None of the other children noticed.
Gunshots echoed in the hall. Pa-tow, tow, tow. Pa-tow-tow-tow. ‘You sons of…’ came Mr Swan’s voice, then more gunshots, louder and closer.
Erica couldn’t breathe as she listened, adrenaline sharpening her senses.
Silence again. The giant clock above the teacher’s desk clicked as it turned to ‘8:23’.
Footsteps coming down the hall; now closer.
More screams. More gunshots.
Finally, Erica found the courage to move. She ran to the door and locked it.
‘Quick, class. Everyone to the back of the room. Now!’ she ordered.
The children scurried to the back like bait fish fleeing a predator. Erica heard a thud and glanced at the window in the door to the hall. Suddenly, Lynn LaForge appeared in the frame, her face a mask of horror. She peered in the window for an instant, her eyes wide and wet with terror. Her hand rattled the door urgently. She opened her mouth when a bullet ripped through her face, blood spattering the window, and she was gone. That fast. Alive one second, gone the next.
‘Inside the closet,’ Erica ordered, trying to calm her voice.
The kids began pushing and shoving to get inside the small space. It would not hold them all. Erica packed in as many as she could and closed the door, her mind racing, her breath ragged. She sprinted to the front of the class again, grabbed her purse, then hurried back. She began frantically piling desks into a barricade.
The doorknob rattled, then violently shook. A masked face appeared in the bloodied window. The gunman banged his rifle butt against the door handle, once, twice. Erica turned to the kids who couldn’t fit into the closet; they were huddled behind the overturned desks, whimpering, fear transforming their faces. She put a finger to her mouth to shush them. She clutched her purse and tried to squeeze in with them behind the makeshift barricade, but couldn’t quite conceal herself.
An abrupt burst of gunfire sent parts of the door flying, glass spraying. The smell of sulphur crept into the room as the barrel of a rifle came into view where the door had been, slowly revealing a black, gloved hand on its grip. Then, the man was in the room. A ski mask covered his face but his eyes were wide and wild through the openings. The weapon he wielded was an Armalite AR-15, semi-automatic. With a thirty-round clip, it weighed only 8.8 lb. It was light, manoeuvrable. Deadly.
Erica could see his eyes hone in on the pile of desks where she and the children were hiding, and realized her leg was sticking out.
‘C’mon outta there,’ he commanded. She reached for her purse, her heart now in her mouth. She stuck her head up.
‘Please,’ she said. ‘I…I sent the kids out to the playground…’
‘SHUT THE FUCK UP!’ he screamed, wincing, as if he were in pain. He stared at her and pulled his mask up, sweat running down his face, his breathing hard, laboured. He was in his forties maybe, with a blunted, street-worn face: twisted nose, cauliflower ears, scarred brows. He squinted at Erica. ‘What’s your name?’ he hissed, sweat dripping off his nose.
She stared back at him over the top of the overturned desks ‘Wh…what?’ she asked.
A