"What the hell?" T.J.'s friend Steve exclaimed, jumping out of his seat, as the cafeteria became a frenzy. "What is going on?"
"Run!" T.J. yelled.
T.J. grabbed his friend's wrist and pulled him through the sea of students, running for their life.
The cafeteria of the school was close to the main exit, thankfully. But with hundreds of kids pushing to get out, escape seemed near impossible.
"Go out the side door!" T.J. gasped as he heard more shots go off behind him and screams erupting everywhere.
T.J., Steve and Sebastian quickly separated themselves from the crowd and ran through the connecting hallway, passed the lockers. As they passed classrooms, teachers with classes still in session were sticking their heads out their doors, looking for a cause for the sudden racket.
"Detwiller, Evans, Jackson," Mr. Dorfman, T.J.'s math teacher exclaimed, stepping in front of the running boys. "What is going on? What's the-"
"Someone has a gun!" T.J. yelled.
Mr. Dorfman's face changed from annoyed to stone white. "Get out," he said softly. Then he turned to his class. "Everyone out through the side door. Now!"
More students, it seemed, figured out that taking this route was more efficient, and this hallway was now filling with both students and teachers. Someone had pulled the fire alarm, but it could barely be heard over the screams.
Suddenly the gunshots grew louder, and T.J. looked back for a second and saw the body of a freshman girl slump over, bloody, before she was trampled by the crowd.
"Come on, man!" Sebastian screamed.
T.J. forced himself to turn back around and continued running until they finally managed to squeeze through the side door. The boys didn't stop running until they reached the flagpole, which seemed to have become the unofficial gathering spot for the students as they finally managed to get outside the school.
T.J. tried to catch his breath as he watched half his classmates collapse from exhaustion and shock while the other half looked frantically around for friends. He managed to hear bits of conversations.
"He had four guns-"
"I know he got at least three-"
"I can't believe-"
"Who-who was it?" T.J. finally managed to ask. He had never gotten a look at the shooter before the bullets started firing. He tried to figure how someone could've gotten into the school's locked front doors and into the cafeteria.
"Frances," one girl whispered. "Frances Abrams."
T.J. blinked. A student had done this? One who he knew, nonetheless. True, him and the former Hustler kid weren't exactly friends, but just the idea of someone who he had once talked to, no matter how many years ago, made the situation even more…surreal.
By this time police cars and fire trucks were speeding into the parking lot. Parents were rushing in, praying that they would find their child unhurt.
"Did everyone get out?" T.J. asked, almost afraid to hear the answer.
"No," Sebastian replied, still looking at the school. "This can't be everyone; this is only about half of us…"
T.J. looked around. He saw kids from some of his classes and faces he only knew from the hallway. Then he spotted Spinelli, standing a short ways away from him, and Vince, huddled with his own friends. He knew they weren't friends anymore, but just knowing that they were at least okay made him feel the smallest bit better.
He suddenly felt his phone vibrate in his pocket, and saw that he had 5 missed calls within the last two minutes, all from his mom.
"Mom?" he said weakly.
"Oh, thank goodness!" she said on the other line. "It just came up on the news…the shooting…please tell me you're okay!"
"I'm fine, mom," he replied. "I got out of the school."
"I'm coming to get you right now," she said.
"Okay. I'm by the flagpole out front."
"You be careful, T.J.; stay far away from the building," his mother warned. "I love you."
"How many ambulances do they need?" Steve asked weakly as five more came zooming into the parking lot.
"Have they got him yet?" T.J. asked, watching more and more police officers, protected by bulletproof vests and guns of their own run into the school.
"Dunno," Steve shrugged. "I can't believe he did it…I mean, I know he was weird and a pot head and all that but still…"
T.J. said nothing.
Nearly half an hour had passed since the first shot.
News trucks had now shown up, along with the president of the school board and just a few passers who saw the scene and wanted to know what was going on. Parents, abandoning their cars on the side of the road leading up to the school were now running on foot up to the building calling out their children's names, only to be pulled back by the police officers guarding the door.
T.J. was staring at the scene with feeling of both sadness and astonishment when he felt a hand on his shoulder. He looked over to see his mother.
Suddenly, T.J. didn't care that a large portion of the student body was around. He cried, tears flowing freely down his face.
"It's going to be alright," his mother whispered gently. "It's going to be alright."
Steve and Sebastian, who had decided earlier to try and get some more information from one of the officers by the door came running back over to T.J.
"He killed himself;" Steve said. "Frances. Shot himself in the head right as the cops approached him."
T.J. didn't know how to react, so he simply nodded. "How many did he-"
"They're going to put a list up for the parents," Sebastian said. "Of everyone who was taken to the hospital…dead or alive."
"Dead?" T.J. repeated.
"All I know is that there were at least four deaths, according to Principal Rollands," Steve said heavily. "Maybe more, I don't know. We're going to go look at the list; do you want to come?"
"Is that alright, mom?" T.J. asked, turning to his mother.
"You meet me right here when you're done," she said reluctantly. "No more than five minutes."
The boys walked slowly over to the bulletin board set against the front doors of the school, which were now being sealed with yellow crime scene tape by two officers. They had to fight their way through the crowd of parents and students to see the list.
It was ominously long; two pages of names. T.J. saw parents break down when they saw their child's name, not knowing whether they were taken to the hospital for a sprained ankle from running through the school or for something far worse…
It pained T.J. to see all the names, even though most of them he didn't even know. He did see Ashley B's. name, though he had seen her being loaded into the ambulance on the way over with only fractured leg. He saw Nancy Ortega's, the former swinger girl's, name, as well as Sam Higgens, one half of the old Diggers, and even Lawson's name…
"We all made it," Steve said, breathing a sigh of relief.
T.J. was about to ask what he was talking about when he realized that he was referring to the fact that none of the names of the student's T.J. now hung out with were on the list.
He continued scanning the list. He did the smallest of double takes when he saw Mikey Blumburg on the list, followed by Randlle Wheems. And then he saw Gretchen Grundler printed right underneath Theresa Goldings, aka Cornship Girl.
"Let's go," T.J. said, unable to take reading another name. "I've got to get home."
They boys walked back over to the flagpole. On the way back, they passed one of the remaining ambulances, and T.J. saw a paramedic placing a sheet of gauze over a bloody mess on Mikey's arm. T.J. felt a bit of relief, knowing that at least Mikey got out alive, but then he thought about Gretchen…
"Come on, T.J.," his mom said when the boys returned. "We're going home. Steve, Sebastian; where are your parents?"
"They both work outside the city," Steve answered. "They called and said they left work and would be here in ten minutes."
"Come with us," she said. "Call them and tell them to meet you at our house."
T.J. followed his mother back to the car, which was parked in the middle of a grassy lot next to the school. They passed Flo and Bob, Spinelli's parents, who were just getting out of their car, rushing towards the school. T.J. saw the panicked looks on their faces.
"She's by the flagpole," he said to the worried couple. "I just saw her."
Relief spread through their faces, and though T.J. hadn't talked to these people in years, he felt as though they shared a special connection, just for a moment.
"Thank you," Flo said gratefully before her and her husband turned back towards the school.
T.J. and his friends loaded into his mother's car and silently drove towards his house. As they passed the school, he saw students still running around, looking for friends and siblings as paramedics tried to find room for all the injured.
How could this happen? He wondered. How?