by EE Isherwood
“It sounds like they’re in the auditorium,” Luke said as he listened.
“Like a pep rally?” I asked, unsure what highschool life was like these days.
“I don’t know,” he allowed, “but it’s this way.”
I gave Levar a last look, but he was faced toward the roadway, watching for his wife. He struck an imposing figure as he stood there. A tall black man with twin pistols on his hips wasn’t the kind of dude anyone would mess with. I was glad to have him watching our six.
We walked down a long hallway lined with blue lockers on each side. The sounds from the gymnasium became clearer as we approached. It was definitely a man talking to a group of students. Each time he would say something, a rumble of crowd noise would erupt.
“This is it,” Luke said as we reached a closed wooden double-door. When he peeked inside one of the small windows, he added, “And it looks like the whole school is in there. They’ve got them packed in.”
Luke shook the door handles, but they were locked.
“Shit,” he hissed. “Let’s bust this down, too.”
“Wait,” I whispered.
The voice inside the auditorium came through clearly. “Students! Please. I know you all want to go home, but there are procedures to follow. Just stay in your seats while Principal James gets this straightened out, okay?”
“Luke, we can’t just bash through the door like in The Shining. It’s going to scare the crap out of all the kids in there, including yours. Where’s the principal’s office? Maybe we can light a fire under their asses. We’ll explain what’s happening outside.”
He glared at the door like it had keyed his car, but then he turned and gestured down the hall. “It’s that way.”
We ran the length of one hallway and turned left to do the same in a second. When we went around another corner, we arrived at a windowed room which was obviously the command center of the school. A small group of men and women in business casual clothing stood on one end, huddled together as if conspiring.
“This is the principal’s office?” I asked.
“It’s the main office. The school actually has separate principals for each grade, since there are so many kids. This is the one we want, however.” He stormed through the door and walked directly toward the staff.
“Hey!” he shouted.
One of the women spun around. “You aren’t supposed to be in here. Are you a parent, I hope?”
“I’m Luke Farmington. Why the hell are my kids locked in your gymnasium?”
A man separated from the main group and hurried toward us as we stood at the front counter.
“Mr. Farmington. You shouldn’t be here.”
“He’s the main principal. Mr. James,” Luke whispered to me.
The man was on the short side, mid-forties, slightly balding, but had a polished way about him, as if he’d run the school for a long time and was used to dealing with difficult parents. When he reached us, he used his arms to attempt to swish us out of the office. “Please, you know you’re not allowed in here while we’re in lockdown, and you especially can’t be in here with those weapons.”
Luke slid the hammer behind his hip as a concession to the man’s wishes, but he didn’t take a step backward. “Lockdown? Why a lockdown? Why aren’t you letting the kids get the hell out of this place? Don’t you know what’s going on outside?”
“Well, yes, we know there’s been a major electrical outage.” James dropped his arms to his side when he realized we weren’t going to be pushed out. “The power spike ruined all our computers and cell phones, too.”
“It wasn’t just that,” I volunteered. “There’s been an EMP. A pulse which knocked out every computer chip in this part of Florida. Cars are dead. Computers. Anything with a microchip. But it’s worse than that because military planes crashed up in North Pointe, too. It means this is bigger than a mere power spike.”
“I’m sure I would have heard about something like that,” the principal scoffed. “We have ten teachers in the hard sciences on this campus. None of them have said it was more than electrical surges that jumped from the lines.”
“Then how do you explain what I just said?” I pressed. “Your parking lot is full of cars that won’t start, and they have no connection to power lines running to your buildings, nor do the dead cars stopped on the roads. I’m sure you’ve seen them.” It bothered me on a fundamental level the mom standing in front of the school immediately recognized we’d experienced an EMP but supposedly smart people leading the school couldn’t put it together. In fact, I was getting tired of explaining it over and over to everyone we met. I needed to carry flash cards with the definition of an EMP so I could hand them out whenever I encountered confused citizens like Mr. James.
“I go by what my people tell me,” he shrugged. “All I know for sure is all lines of communications with the bus service are down, which means we have to go to a secondary protocol for releasing the kids.”
“Which is?” Luke asked.
James tilted his head back to the group of people. Looking at them closer, it became obvious they stood around a pair of industrial copy machines, though they weren’t powered on. “We have strict security protocols in place to protect the children, which is why we had to lock them down when we lost power. Normally, we check out each student using our computer system, but obviously that’s not an option today. My helpers are scrambling to write up rudimentary release forms for all two thousand students. Once we have those ready, we’ll cancel the lockdown and let people out of the auditorium. But only when we match them up with their parents at the front doors.”
I couldn’t help myself from chuckling.
“You think this is funny?” James asked.
“There’s a mob banging on your front door. It’s your call, but if you’re planning on handing out paperwork to those folks, you better be wearing one of those bomb disposal suits.”
“Why can’t you just dismiss everyone,” Luke asked with increasing agitation, “like the end of a normal school day?”
James looked at his watch. “It’s almost 2:30, yes, and if it were a normal day, I could throw open the doors and let them all go. However, without busses to load them, I can’t send them miles out into the city on foot, can I? I have to wait until their parents come and get them.”
On the one hand, I saw his point. I appreciated how he seemed to care what happened to his students once they left his supervision. However, he had no appreciation for the scale of the disaster beyond his campus. It might be hours before parents could walk or bike to the school. Or never…
I thought I heard breaking glass in the distance.
“Can I sign out my two right now?” Luke asked in haste.
“Of course,” James smiled. “Let me get two sheets.”
While the principal retrieved the paperwork, I heard more of the distinctive tinkling of falling glass. “You hear that?”
“These people have no idea what they’re doing,” Luke commented.
“They mean well on some level,” I replied under my breath, “but I can feel disaster coming, can’t you?”
“Hell yeah,” he exhaled.
James came back with a pair of papers, but before he handed them to Luke, he noticed a pair of men running by the office. “Hey! Stop! You’ve got to check in!”
Luke grabbed the release forms as James passively watched the hallway. More parents ran by, not giving the principal’s office more than passing glances. They followed those ahead of them as they went deeper into the highschool.
“They’re already inside,” I said to him. “Look, you’re out of time, sir. Go with me and Luke into the gym and release all the kids before the place gets out of control.”
I tried to think of how to sweeten the pot. “He and I will try to round up everyone who lives in our neck of the woods. We’ll escort them as best we can.”
James watched more people pass outside his office.
“My form is filled.” Luke slapp
ed the sheet on the counter. “You heard what he asked. Are you going to help us? If not, I’m getting my kids anyway.”
“Last chance,” I said to James. “You want us to get the kids home, or not?”
The bureaucrat looked at me with fear in his eyes. “This isn’t how it should be done. I can’t release other people’s children to a stranger.”
There was now a steady stream of parents walking by. I had no clue about the layout of the school, but even I knew they were heading for the auditorium. “Sir, your plans are already ruined. Once those parents get to the gym, the kids are going to scatter to the wind.”
“Let’s roll.” Luke tugged at my arm.
“Mr. James?” I pressed. “What do you want to do?”
He met my eyes, and I saw a spark of weary acceptance. However, he jumped a foot off the ground when two gunshots exploded in the hallway.
Parents scattered in every direction. Some dove inside the doorway of the main office to escape the commotion.
I crouched by the threshold, as did Luke.
“It’s too dangerous!” James complained from behind his countertop. “We need to wait for the police.”
“I saw the guy with the gun,” Luke reported. “He’s heading the same way as everybody else. We have to get to my kids right now.”
We weren’t going to get any help from James or the paper pushers. They had their way of doing things, and they weren’t going to change them fast enough, so it fell on us to do what was necessary.
I glanced back to James as I bolted out the door. “Good luck with your forms.”
Luke and I trotted warily down the hallway. The gunshots had cleared most people from the main hall, but even the threat of further violence couldn’t stop the flow of parents for long. He and I made it about twenty yards down the corridor before the others rushed out of the empty classrooms and slowed our progress to a crawl.
“At least I have my paperwork signed,” Luke joked.
“Yeah, when we get there, we’ll make sure the other parents know your kids get to leave first, right?”
We shared some tense laughter.
A man shoved me in the side, and a woman ran into my back, but neither had done it on purpose. There were far too many people for the hallway, and the open doors of the gym created a bottleneck ahead of us. The echoes of student voices came through the opening, giving us hope we’d soon be with Luke’s kids, but I had to fight against the press of bodies as we neared.
“At least these doors are open,” I commented.
“We ain’t stopping for shit,” a random woman replied to me.
Others cheered her words.
Luke and I had no choice but to become friendly with the men and women around us. We sucked in our guts and crunched together with the crowd as we squeezed through the doorway. However, once inside, the parents exploded in all directions to escape the constriction. Some went for the bleachers, but most went out onto the basketball court.
“Shit, this is absolute chaos,” Luke said as he scanned the stands.
Arriving parents tried to rise above the generalized noise by screaming the names of their kids, which created a self-defeating situation, as if every radio station on the dial played a news report at the same time. The kids had no hope of hearing an individual parent calling for them.
We needed a way to get Luke noticed.
“Hey, bud, can you do a pullup?” I asked.
Luke looked at me like my head had spun all the way around.
“Can you lift yourself if I help you onto one of those?” I pointed to the basketball hoop at the less crowded end of the gym.
He seemed to piece together my request before nodding.
“I can’t do many, but I can at least do one.”
“That’s all we’ll need,” I assured him.
We ran under the hoop and set down our crude weapons.
“On three,” I said.
I wrapped my arms around his thighs and lifted at the appropriate moment. Like the world’s worst cheer squad act, I hefted the young man, so he was able to grab the net. Once he’d made contact, I helped lighten his load by lifting his legs. He pulled himself up on the orange rim and got into a sitting position.
“Nice job!” I shouted.
“I can really see things from up here.”
“I can do you one better,” I called out. “Get ready to yell their names.”
The gym was bedlam. More parents filed in through two different doorways, and most of the kids had started down the bleachers, clunking the metal risers with thousands of footfalls, making identification even more difficult.
I put two fingers between my lips and used a skill I’d picked up working one-too-many shifts at loading yards. I cranked out an ear-piercing whistle I knew from experience could be heard from almost a mile away.
The entire place froze, like a thousand deer seeing a thousand headlights, but it didn’t become whisper quiet as I’d hoped. A few kept stomping the bleachers, and the talking was maybe cut in half. It was far from perfect, but the room had died down enough to give Luke his opening.
“Rainey and Tyler!” he shouted. “Over here!”
Luke repeated the names a second time, but other parents were quick to piggyback on our idea. They also shouted the names of their loved ones, which sent the gym into another frenzy. Before he could call out a third time, the place was noisier and more chaotic than it had been before.
“Did it work?” I called up to him. I was ready to whistle again, but I knew it wouldn’t have the same effect. Already there were men and women whistling like I did, though I took some pride none of them were as loud as me.
He looked around with anticipation. At first, his face was laced with worry as he searched the crowd, but it wasn’t long before it lit up with joy.
“They’re coming!” he gushed.
Luke scrambled off the hoop until he hung from the net with his hands.
“Wait!” I cried out.
“I can drop,” he assured me.
“If you break an ankle, there won’t be any medical services. Let me help you down.”
He thought about it for a second and then agreed.
I reached for his legs and got a good grip. As he let himself drop, I guided him down and slowed his descent. It was the clumsy cheer squad again, but we got it done without injury. That’s what mattered.
A young woman ran up to us. “Dad!”
“Rainey! Thank God!” Luke opened his arms as his daughter fell into them.
A couple of seconds later, a younger boy trotted up. “Dad, that was cringy!”
“It certainly was.” Luke held out an arm. “Bring it in, Tyler.”
For a few seconds, the young family stood frozen as kids and parents swarmed the gymnasium around us. However, Luke broke their embrace and gently pushed both kids to a respectable distance so he could speak to them.
“What the heck is going on out there?” Tyler asked immediately. “They said the power is out everywhere.”
“Never mind that,” the daughter said. “What’s going on in here? I’ve never seen parents in such a hurry to get to their kids. I think the freshmen and sophomores are peeing their pants.”
“I’m not pissing myself,” Tyler growled.
“I didn’t mean you,” she snickered, “but some of your bros are freaking out.”
Looking at the nearby students, some of the youngest did appear frightened and confused. Many stayed high in the bleachers, as if knowing their parents weren’t among those who’d come inside. If it mattered, I would have blamed the principal and administration staff for creating such fear.
“I can’t tell you how glad I am to see you guys,” Luke spoke to the pair. “This is our neighbor, Frank Douglas. He helped me ride a bike to your school so we could take you home.”
I shook hands with the girl first. She was as tall as her dad, with long black hair cinched into a ponytail. She wore black stretch pants and a silver school T-shirt with a thr
ee-tined trident on the front, and I guessed she was an athlete of some kind.
“Nice to meet you, sir,” she said respectfully.
“Likewise.”
Tyler shook next. He was a little shorter than his sister but had the same swarthy dark complexion and hip hairstyle as his dad, as if he were imitating his father. His red sweatpants and Adidas shirt also suggested he was athletic.
“Hello, Mr. Douglas,” the boy added.
“Please, you and your sister can call me Frank. ‘Mr. Douglas’ is now retired.”
“We should get out of here,” Luke suggested. “But the exit is clogged.”
Most of the parents continued arriving in the door we’d come through, but now some students were trying to leave, which made the bottleneck into an impossible choke point.
“I have a better idea,” I said as I pointed to the doors on our side of the gym. They were the set we’d approached when we’d first come into the school, meaning the exit we wanted was closer than I could have hoped.
The doors were locked from the inside. When I pushed them open, a few parents who’d been standing there immediately rushed through. They’d probably tried to get around the crowd at the other doors.
“You made it,” I said to calm them down.
Once they were through, we exited into the hall. I flipped the metal security tab on the door so the lock wouldn’t engage again, since there was no reason to keep anyone out.
The relative quiet in the hallway seemed to catch us all by surprise.
“Wow, that was insane,” Rainey blurted.
“Keep moving,” I said, leading by example. “We have a long walk ahead of us once we get out of here.”
“Walk?” the boy replied with sadness in his voice.
The sister laughed to herself.
We strode a short way before Tyler stopped at a row of vending machines.
“What are you doing?” Luke asked the kid, also halting.
“I’ll catch up, Dad. If we’re walking, I want a soda.”
“Son, we don’t have time,” Luke said with exasperation. “We brought water.”
