The Monsters
It starts off as a normal day. Walking through the morning hallways of another school, all the faces of the people a menagerie of expression. When suddenly, there is a panic. No one knows why but it is heavy on the air and in every face which now scans for reason. The word "Shooter" echoes through the halls with the reverberating cracks of gunfire and like an alarm bell all are woke from their little dreams of life and thrust into a living nightmare.
I run, not sure of where but I'm running. The teachers and secretaries are all feverishly dialing their respective phones but they are still sitting, and I am running. I make it to the front door but outside is chaos. People teeter and fall in sprays of red mist, and I'm halfway across the school's lawn when I see the prone snipers to my right.. "So there are more than one gunman." This is all I can process as I try to juke their fire. The bullets wizz by me and somehow I manage to get back inside. I am in a utility staircase and hearing gunfire from my level I ascend. At the top their is a girl with glasses, unsure of what to do, frozen in fear. I say "Get inside and lock the door." There are more people in this room hiding, it is a computer room, all the lights are off. The door to my right is wide open and going to close it I see the machine gun in a guy's hands, pointing and firing at the cowering people around him. He is slow and deliberate in his action, the intelligence and cruelty is cold and calculating. I close this door. From behind me they tell me not to lock it or the gunmen might know we were here. I go to lock the door but it begins to open. I scream for them to help me close it, but the door gives enough for me to lock it and I tell them to "Get down!" But instead of gunfire through the door it begins to cave inward from bashing. I look around, there is another room. I run to it, it is a security room with locks on the doors. I scream for the others to come to me but they are running for the stairway, the adults in the security room follow them. I hear shooting, I close the door and lock it, there is more shooting. I am sitting in my tiny room of screens looking at the door, only now do I realize a gaping letter hole in the door-frame, and in a space of time longer than any eternity I stare at the hole hearing only silence and the deafening roar of my heart. When I was sure someone was searching the computer room I made for the other locked door. I was now in a large generator room on the catwalk above. Down the catwalk I see a gunman with glasses, he looks my way. I freeze. He comes toward me, the darkness hides me, I am amazed he cannot see me. Another gunman comes to him and he turns from my direction saying "I feel like someone will make a move here." They are planning to catch people, planning to kill people, they are not berserk with fury, they are intellects of death. They are the grim reaper. My body more than my mind takes the chance to leap unseen from the catwalk, and at the bottom I make a loud noise which I'm sure was heard by the shooters. I run to a window, it is several stories up, I am afraid of heights but I jump anyway. I land on the turf and make a dash across the street. I bob and weave trying to make myself a difficult target. The green of the grass is so vibrant in the morning light. My hands meet the dewy grass and I lope like a freed wild beast. I think of how I have survived. I think of the story I will tell. I hear a gunshot.
