Shooter

written by Brittany Simonic

 

She couldn’t remember how she got there.

Her feet were planted firmly in the grass, but she swayed from left to right, desperately gripping the girthy oak tree beside her for balance. The pungent smell of gunpowder overwhelmed her airways and a crimson sap stained her blouse and trailed down the lengths of her limbs. She numbly gazed at the structure before her, scouring the crosshairs of her brain for a shred of awareness.


That morning, she had risen slightly later than usual and softly cursed the pinot grigio that lined her throat from the night before as she brushed her teeth. Her sister had been visiting and they had stayed up late reminiscing over their prehistoric youth. The wine had been an unexpected guest.

“Maria, you really should just take the day off tomorrow,” her sister had blithely advised. “The weather looks promising. We could go get lunch.”

“I can’t just call off, Catherine. The kids are having their big test on Friday. Beowulf,” she’d beamed as she drained her glass.

Maria was a proud eleventh grade English teacher at Ladue Horton Watkins High School for the past three years and hadn’t yet come across a job she’d loved more than this one. Her class this year consisted of 28 old souls with hungry minds and they truly made her job fun. They'd been reading Seamus Heaney’s translation of the lengthy poem for several weeks.


Now, as screams and sirens surrounded her, Maria couldn’t recall how she ended up here, under this tree, from her place at the front of room 109.

As she surveyed the area helplessly, she counted. It was all she could think to do. One, two, three, four. Four heads leaned in against one another in tearful prayer. Five, six. A pair of panicked young lovers draped in each other’s arms. Seven. A small-statured girl, trembling and repeatedly brushing the tops of her thighs with bloody palms. Eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve. Five smartphones hugging five sweaty temples. Thirteen, fourteen. Two students holding each other and sobbing in sorrowful unison.

What the fuck is happening? How did I get here?

Maria noticed she wasn’t breathing. She was inhaling, but not exhaling- exhaling, not inhaling. Which was it? She couldn’t tell. She didn’t care. Armed police officers herded another group of horrified faces out of the building and eight of them came to join her class under the oak tree. Twenty-two.

Her ears rang with the chirping of the fire alarm. She watched a muted helicopter rise from the campus courtyard and take flight. A line of ambulances rushed onto campus while several more (one, two, three, four) sped out, lights flashing violently and muffled sirens echoing in Maria’s soul. Her eyes darted to the fleet of ambulances still parked nearby where the shells of traumatized children were being treated for their tangible wounds, and rested on a plaid shirt that was being scissored off of a young man wearing an oxygen mask. Beside him, a young lady with shreds of mangled flesh hanging from her elbow. Twenty-four.

That’s when she remembered the popping sounds that interrupted her lesson.

The piercing sound of shattering glass and the thump of bodies hitting the floor.

She closed her eyes and let her knees buckle underneath her as she slid down the trunk of the tree and came to some sort of a seated position in the grass. The image of her students scrambling to take cover behind books and blood-spattered desks came to life in front of her.

“Shooter,” she muttered.

She leaned to her right and bowed her head as she retched into the grass beside her.

It reeked of wine and gunpowder. A sultry combination.

Maria and Catherine had always been close. When Dad got sick, Catherine had been elated to move back to Missouri and help out. Between both their incomes, she and her husband could rearrange their schedules and still manage a comfortable lifestyle- all the basic amenities of life and a 2005 Porsche Carrera GT in the garage. Their son Ben already had the credits he needed to graduate, and Cecelia didn’t mind finishing out junior year in her Aunt Maria’s English class. It had worked out seamlessly.


“Oh! That’s right, Cece did mention a test on Friday. Something about a German war hero,” she’d giggled. “Guess we’d better turn in then.”

Maria had glinted with delight. She loved having her sister in the neighborhood. She was so grateful to be such a big part of Ben and Cece’s lives- they were kind and passionate kids, which was a solid testament to Catherine’s parenting. Her niece was sharp as a tack and she loved to participate in class discussions. She was the kind of kid that made all of the late-night lesson planning worthwhile.


Maria noticed a thick streak of vomit on her chin. In lieu of a tissue she clutched at the fabric of her blouse and made a sorry attempt to clean herself up, when she felt heavy cotton sticking to her abdomen. She glanced down at her hand and was met with a deep, red wetness that stared back at her. A hellish metallic taste danced on her tongue and, all in a moment's time, she remembered.


Five pops. Shattered glass. Thump. Thump. Thump. A boy, who had been mid-sentence of a Beowulf synopsis, suddenly slumped over his desk as if he were asleep. Three other limp bodies spilled onto the cold linoleum. Maria had dropped to her hands and knees and crawled toward her desk, swallowing her breath to make as little sound as possible. Her cell phone was in her purse in the closet. She locked eyes on the corded phone and hurriedly made her way across the classroom floor. Left, right, left… her right hand slipped in something wet and she stumbled, slamming her cheek off the blood-soaked floor. Whimpering, she lifted herself back up onto all fours and kept her eyes on the corded phone. Help, she thought. God, please help us. Pop. Pop, pop, pop. Screams echoed from the classroom next door. Maria dialed 9-1-1, hypnotized by the scarlet fingerprints she'd left on the buttons. As she whispered to dispatch, she shifted her body on the floor so that she could keep her students in her sight. She averted her eyes from the four who were shot. She had to keep the rest safe for now. The regular drills they'd performed in preparation for this taught her not to render aid to injured students while the shooter was still at large, or she would risk getting everyone else in the room killed. Jett Whitner's face was no longer recognizable, but he was the only student still sitting in his seat. Of the three bleeding out on the floor, at least one was still alive. Theo Lockwood’s agonizing cries for help were impossible to ignore but Maria had no other choice. There were two non-responsive females with brown hair on the floor as well, their identities concealed by the mess of students trembling under the desks.

Maria panically scanned the group of twenty-four huddled beside her now under the oak tree. Four were missing. Theo, Jett, Wren, and…


A soft repetition of vibrations buzzed from her pocket. Maria looked down and realized that, at some point, her phone had made it from inside of her purse in the classroom onto her person. When did that happen? She pulled it out, fingers still caked with someone else’s blood and winced as Catherine’s name peered up at her.


“Maria, I can’t reach Cece,” she screamed.