Shelter in Place: A short story from the world of BUNKER 12

by Saul Tanpepper

  CONTENTS

  Shelter in Place

  A standalone story in the world of

  BUNKER 12

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  Copyright Notice

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Tanpepper Tidings Newsletter

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  SHELTER IN PLACE

  When her elementary school goes into lockdown, a third grade teacher shifts into survival mode. But she'll soon discover that the children under her charge pose as much risk as any threat waiting outside her door.

  by Saul Tanpepper

  © 2016

  All rights reserved (full notice)

  First published as Lockdown in The Future Chronicles: The Doomsday Chronicles

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  authorsaultanpepper@gmail.com

  (rv.160907)

  SHELTER IN PLACE

  Allison Mullins was convinced that the three-quarter-inch gap beneath her classroom door would be the death of her.

  That's what she always said, anyway, complaining to anyone who would listen: "The rain blows in and makes the linoleum slippery. You don't know how many times I've almost fallen because of it."

  Once, a few weeks after the term started, she told her fiancé that as soon as the weather turned cold, rats would start coming in. James laughed and kissed her on the lips in that way that turned her bones to jelly. He told her he doubted anything so large could squeeze through such a small space.

  "Spiders or cockroaches, maybe," he said. "But not rats."

  She knew he was only teasing, but the offhand remark stuck with her. Images of vermin would pop into her mind at the most inopportune moments, like the time they were making love in their tiny one-room apartment.

  She told the janitor about the gap, but he punted the issue up to Maintenance, who said the work order had to come down from the principal. The principal promised to install some foam weather stripping the first chance he got.

  But each morning she'd come in to find that nothing had been done about it. She'd have to sweep out the dead leaves that had blown in overnight. She even took to tweezing apart the little aggregated piles with her fingers, searching for evidence of vermin—mouse droppings and such.

  Afterward, she'd scrub her hands raw in the scalding water from the sink in her en suite bathroom, even though she'd worn disposable latex gloves. She worried about the diseases that might be lurking in the filth.

  There hadn't been any droppings. Not yet, anyway, but she knew it was inevitable. The rats would come in sooner or later, drawn by the warmth and the food her third graders left in their desks or dropped onto the floor. And with them would come the germs. She adored the kids and knew they didn't mean to be messy. It was just the way they were. In fact, she often told her colleagues at staff meetings that she had the best classroom in the whole school.

  But then she'd remember the door and say, "If it weren't for that damn gap."

  And the other teachers would make sympathetic noises and pat her on the shoulder, as if to show their solidarity.

  But none of their doors had gaps.

  * * *

  The day of the emergency lockdown started out just like any other. The morning air was crisp, the sunlight blinding, and the children their usual ebullient selves. Hearing their joyful shouts always brought a grin to Allison's face. When the early bell rang, she lined them up outside her classroom and gave them each a squirt of hand sanitizer from the bottle she kept on the counter. Hygiene was an important part of her curriculum.

  Instruction proceeded as usual—mathematics followed by social science. Then came a break. She lined the students up to go play outside so she could meet with a parent.

  Rodney Cundiff was one of those high-energy kids—bright and aggressively inquisitive, yet completely unable to focus on any one task for longer than five minutes. His parents were the same way. They'd flit in and out of class with little regard for Allison or the students until she finally had to ask them to call ahead first.

  June Cundiff was waiting outside the door when the children filed out. As usual, Rodney was at the very front of the line, his antics already causing the students behind him to misbehave. Distracted by thoughts of playtime, he failed to notice his mother as he passed her, despite her calling his name and reminding him to keep his hands to himself.

  The meeting was brief and pointed. June wanted to know if it might be possible for Rodney to skip the afternoon's language arts sessions, which took place in the school's crowded library. "He sees all those books," she told Allison, "and it's almost too much for him to handle. He'd be better off sitting quietly in the classroom reading on his own."

  Allison agreed, though she doubted it would make much difference to the boy. She didn't mention that a couple parents had complained about Rodney's behavior, or about the librarian bringing him up to her on various occasions.

  "I'll be dedicating some one-on-one time with another student as well," she told the worried-looking Mrs. Cundiff. "It's really no problem."

  Relief flooded the woman's face, and she reached out to clasp hands with her son's teacher. The uninvited contact left Allison feeling icky. Her skin itched where the stiff white bandage on the tip of the woman's finger had scratched it.

  After Mrs. Cundiff left, Allison washed her hands, then put sanitizer on for good measure.

  By noon, ominous storm clouds had rolled in, accompanied by strong wind gusts and the first fat drops of what promised to be a considerable shower. The children's behavior reflected the weather, growing increasingly boisterous. Forced to lunch inside at their desks, the classroom soon descended into a state of near-chaos. By the time Allison sent them off for their library session, she was more than ready for a little peace and quiet.

  After the others left, she provided Rodney and Sanja, a meek Pakistani girl, with their reading instructions and returned to her desk for a few moments to decompress.

  Rodney lasted all of ninety seconds before he was up and chasing the leaves swirling in beneath the door. She asked him to sit down. Another blast of wind rattled the door against the frame, sending in a spray that dampened the threshold. Rain lashed at the windows and rattled the gutters.

  Allison stood up to peek through the closed blinds, which the school had installed as part of the district's new shooter-deterrence strategy, and gave the dark sky a worried look. The six-foot eave proved to be insufficient protection and promised her students a good soaking when they returned from the lesson. Allison was not looking forward to spending the last hour of the day teaching a classroom full of damp, shivering students who would be incapable of paying attention.

  "Miss Mullins? Rodney's making mud."

  Allison turned away from the window just as the school's alarm began to blare. A yelp of surprise escaped through her lips.

  "Attention, all teachers and staff!" Principal Barden announced over the intercom. His voice crackled with static, and there was a low buzz of people speaking over each other in the background. "Please shut and lock your doors immediately! This is a shelter-in-place order, not a drill! All lockdown procedures must be followed! I repeat, lock your doors, shut off all lights and A/V equipment. Close your blinds. Take shelter away from your windows. Remain silent and await further instructions. This is not a drill!"

  "What's happening, Miss Mullins?" Sanja asked, tugging at A
llison's sleeve.

  "I don't know, sweetie. Just do as we practiced. Rodney! Get away from the door now! Onto the sharing mat, both of you!"

  She flipped the lights off, then checked that the door was locked. With the blinds closed, a gloom swept through the room nearly as dark as night. Feeling her way to her desk, she grabbed her purse from the drawer, then made her way through the obstacle course of tables and chairs to the back corner of the classroom.

  "Where's Rodney?" she asked. "Rodney!"

  "Bafroom," he replied from somewhere near the middle of the classroom.

  "Bath," Allison corrected, before reminding herself to keep quiet. "And you don't need to go. Come sit with us."

  "What about the other kids?" Sanja asked.

  "They'll be fine, honey," she whispered, but nonetheless turned a worried glance out into the empty room. "As long as they listen and follow directions, they'll be fine. And so will we. Rodney? Did you hear me?"

  The administration had conducted an active-shooter training exercise the week before school started. The drill was only supposed to last a half hour, just long enough for each teacher to run through the checklist of items they were supposed to do, but it had ended up dragging on much longer than that. She remembered growing impatient, resenting the fact that she wasn't being paid to sit alone in the dark doing nothing. She needed the time to prepare her new classroom.

  It had been during that drill that Allison first became aware of the gap beneath the door. Sitting quietly in the darkness, she had watched the shadows crisscrossing the threshold as the administrators and emergency personnel passed by outside conducting their own checks. She could hear them talking and laughing. Twice, someone had stopped to jiggle her doorknob. At least one of those times had been her principal. There was no mistaking the tangerine glow of his trademark sneakers.

  She reflected how sad it was that the greatest risk to the children came in the form of suicidal mass murderers. She'd grown up in California and the Midwest, and the drills back then had been for earthquakes and tornadoes, respectively. Her father told stories of learning how to duck and cover beneath his desk as a child. He'd grown up on the East Coast during the Cold War, when the daily noon siren from the firehouse was a carryover from the nuclear alert system and its wail could be heard for miles around.

  Those air raid drills now seemed quaint by comparison.

  "Rodney!" she whispered in as loud a voice as she dared. "What are you doing?"

  There was no answer.

  "I'll be right back," she told Sanja, standing up and pulling away from the girl's anxious grip. "Rodney, where are you?"

  The door to the bathroom opened and a tidal wave of light flooded into the class. Rodney surfaced in the middle of it wiping his hands on his pants. Allison hurried over and grabbed his elbow. "Did you wash?"

  "Yes, Miss Mullins. I even used soap."

  She reached over and flipped off the light. "We need to get over to the mat and sit quietly! Do you want me to get in trouble?"

  "No, Miss—"

  The classroom telephone rang, filling the room with its harsh jangle. An impressive facsimile of the sound burbled out of Rodney's mouth. He laughed and broke away from her, disappearing into the warren of desks. She could hear him crawling underneath them, banging his head, knocking pencils and books to the floor. But at least he was moving in the direction of the sharing mat.

  She turned her attention toward the phone, which rang again before she could reach it. Groping blindly over the surface of her desk, she finally located the receiver and lifted it to her ear.

  "Hello?"

  "Alli? Oh, thank———your cell———straight to voice mail."

  "James?"

  Up until that moment, she'd not felt much alarm. Despite the note of urgency in the principal's voice and the confusion of background speakers, she had remained calm, confident that whatever the problem was, it would quickly resolve itself. She'd heard no gunshots outside. And all of the classroom doors opened into a gated quad that was locked during the day, requiring visitors to enter through the main office, so it was unlikely that anyone had gotten in. She figured someone had either called in a fake threat or something had happened in one of the neighboring businesses.

  But now a bolt of panic arced through her body. James knew she kept her cell phone on silent mode during the day, so something must have upset him enough to forget. He also knew that the classroom line was only supposed to be used for emergencies.

  "What is it, honey?" she asked.

  "Is your door locked?"

  Her heart skipped a beat. "My door?"

  "Is it locked?"

  "Y-yes. How did you—"

  "Do not open it!"

  "Honey, you're scaring me. What's happening? Where are you?"

  "———work. We're———ockdown too———the news———"

  "James?"

  "———check on you, make sure you———up the gap."

  "Gap? I can't understand you. You're breaking up."

  "———go outside. Stay safe. Don't worry."

  "Go outside?"

  "———news and———everywhere is———"

  "James? There's something wrong with the connection. James?" She pulled the receiver away from her ear and looked at it. But it was just a stupid desk phone without a screen and so it offered no clue to the problem. She banged it against her palm. "James?"

  A series of mechanical clicks came through the tiny speaker. Then silence for a couple seconds. Finally, the dial tone returned. James was gone.

  "Miss Mullins?"

  "Shh, Sanja. Just a minute. I'll be right there."

  She punched in James's number, her fingers skittering blindly over the keypad in the darkness. Nothing happened. She tried again, and the result was the same, except that now there wasn't even the sound of an open line when she pressed the disconnect button.

  "Miss Mullins?"

  In her agitation, she missed the cradle. The handset tumbled to the floor.

  "Miss Mullins!"

  "Yes, Sanja," she said impatiently. "What is it?"

  "Rodney took his shirt off."

  Allison rolled her eyes. She didn't bother retrieving the receiver. The damn phone wasn't working anyway. She took a deep breath and told Rodney to put his shirt back on.

  "He's taking his socks and shoes off, too."

  Let him. I couldn't care less if he stripped down to his underwear and started doing jumping jacks on the desks.

  No, actually I do. He'd probably fall off and break an arm. And the school would be sued, and I'd lose my job.

  "Rodney, put—Ow! Put your socks and shoes back on and go sit down on the sharing mat."

  Her head pounded. Her shin hurt. She was dangerously close to hyperventilating. And why? Because their phone call had been disconnected?

  Because James knew. Because he called the classroom to ask if my door was locked. Why would he do that?

  And how did he know she was on lockdown anyway?

  His tenth-floor office was five blocks away. She couldn't see his building from her window, as it faced the wrong direction, but he should be able to see the school from his. Was he watching it right now? What was he seeing?

  She made her way over to the window and peeked through the blinds. The rain was coming down in sheets now, sometimes vertically, sometimes swirling in underneath the eaves. The courtyard was empty. Nobody was out there, and nothing was happening. She couldn't imagine a shooter—or anyone else for that matter—wanting to be out in that mess.

  Did he say that he was on lockdown, too? She couldn't remember. And if so, what could be so big as to cover such a large area?

  Gas leak?

  She remembered the gas explosion in California several years back. That had been a terrible tragedy, so many killed. She sniffed the air and detected nothing but the sharp tang of the season's first rain.

  Maybe a chemical spill?

  Nuclear radiation?

  Each n
ew potential threat ushered in an even more fantastic and deadly one after it.

  Solar flare?

  Is that why he told her to stay inside? And had she heard him correctly? Did he mention something about the gap?

  Her eyes drifted over to the door.

  I should seal it up.

  She decided to get her cell phone and dial James back.

  "Miss Mullins?"

  Allison turned around, sighing. "Rodney, I told you to put your clothes back on."

  "He did, Miss Mullins."

  "Then what is it now, Sanja?"

  "I have to go to the bathroom. Bad."

  "Of course you do, honey. Well, come on. Can you see?"

  "Not very much."

  There was a bump, the sound of something soft hitting something hard, like a thigh or arm on the edge of a desk, followed by a muffled cry.

  Allison held the blinds away a little more, allowing some of the sparse light to filter in. What could it hurt? There was no one out there anyway.

  Except someone was.

  Her breath locked in her throat as she squinted into the gray haze.

  Principal Barden?

  She'd recognize those glowing orange shoes anywhere. But why was he out there in the pouring rain, stumbling around like that? Especially during a lockdown?

  Frowning, Allison let the blinds fall back into place. She went over and helped Sanja to the bathroom door. "You may turn on the light, but only after you close the door, okay? And you have to turn it off again before you come out."

  "I know."

  She wondered what mischief Rodney was getting into as she waited by the bathroom listening to the drone of the rain. A metal flap kept clacking somewhere in the heating vent in the wall near the ceiling.

  "What are you doing, Rodney?"

  Paper crinkled somewhere in the middle of the room. "Eating lunch," he mumbled past a mouthful of food.

  "You just ate lunch twenty minutes ago."

  "I'm hungry again."

  Allison shook her head. "Don't spill. We'll get rats." And she glanced over to the door again, her skin prickling.