THUD!
Huddled together in the darkness of the panic room, Josie and Fugo looked up at the little window set high in the door, "Toreador Song" gurgling to a grinding halt just outside as a drift of feathers and torn sheet music swirled unnoticed around them.
The fire alarm went silent.
In the sudden loud hush the two wordlessly decided to give it a few minutes before leaving their little shelter.
You never knew.
Static, followed by: "…all students and staff are directed to the nearest fire exit and to gather in the parking lots for roll call until dismissed."
Officer Abbaccio cautiously stood up at the end of the hall from where he'd taken cover behind a stack of theater department overflow. After calling in the active shooter report, he'd sped down the hall in a blur, slamming doors along the way.
Grinning ear to ear, Leon's velociraptor-like talons unconsciously tapped out a victory beat, good enough for any powwow as he herded crying students out the cafeteria fire exit and away from the crime scene. Then his toes stilled.
Where's Schmi—...uh oh.
Maggie and Puck pulled each other to their feet and froze: Uncle Mike lay facedown nearby, leaking pale fluid, a tear gas haze slowly dissipating around him.
As oner, the two girls counted to three and somehow rolled him over.
Dakota Spencer lay beneath in a pool of his own blood, crushed.
Wheezing, and with eyes streaming, Maggie and her sister grabbed Uncle Mike by the feet and straining, dragged him down the hall in a smear of red and white, looking for a hiding place like he'd taught them as the thud-thud-thud of a helicopter echoed overhead.
José Morph, Tina's flat little father eased himself out from between two lockers where he'd secreted himself the second Dakota shot out the front doors and plugged his custodial cart, and shook himself. Antennae at a jaunty angle, Merston High's head janitor scuttled confidently down the hallway on all six in search of his pride and joy. Their genus in one form or another could survive just about anything including pendejos.
As for Tina (Short for "Martína"), Tina had swept most of her classmates under her naturally armored body in the middle of Ghoulia Yelp's endless droning presentation, "Budgets, Why Do We Need Them?" the second Dakota and his cousin shot out the front door, snagging a startled Draculaura by the back of her fluffy dress, stuffing the petite vampire beneath her head frill before hunkering to the floor the second she heard gunfire; something she'd learned living in L.A.'s Rancho San Pedro before moving to Salem because her parents wanted to send their smart daughter to a good school AND own their own home at the same time.
More static…"…edical assistance will be provided if needed."
Raising her head frill, the big girl cautiously stood up on her four back legs, sending Draculaura tumbling onto her friends with a startled "Eeeeeek!"
"All classes are canceled until further notice."
"Daaaaaaaaaaaaddddddddddyyyyyyyy!" Cleo de Nile wailed, forgetting her usual disdain for everyone and everything, and ran crying across the faculty parking lot as Ramses de Nile, her father, stepped regally out of his 1930s Rolls Royce and scooped his sobbing little girl up in his arms before Joe Joestar, his personal assistant could park it safely among the milling students and faculty.
Narancia, one of Cleo's regular targets for disdain, jeered after her, "Yo, Cleo-KUNT-raaaaaa, you should join the track team!" while squirming out from under Chet, who'd fainted.
The spidery werewolf staggered to his feet, caught his balance, and after scooping up his drumsticks, began jogging, orange headscarf fluttering behind, friends falling into place around him in an unconscious diamond formation, only stopping to help Mr. Dinkle, the band teacher, to his feet.
Seeing that Mr. Dinkle was okay, Mista, the point of the diamond, growled at a frequency humans couldn't hear. The group of four abruptly turned as one, and loped in the general direction of Trussardi's, a local Italian restaurant.
Narancia glanced over at the lanky freshman running beside him. Adopted by a vampire and a normie, Giorno, the new boy of the pack, began lagging behind looking confused. "But my dad...?"
Narancia shrugged, gesturing at Giorno to speed it up or get left behind, exclaiming, "The Pack comes first. Call him when we get there!"
A few more strides, he sweetened the deal, "Hurry it up, there's CAKE where we're going!"