Shooters

Ms. Peterson huddled underneath her desk, unmoving. She was as still as a stone statue, as quiet as a library after closing. If she could stop breathing without suffocating, she would. If she could stop her heartbeat without dying, she would. But she could only press her hands to her mouth, hoping to suppress the panic. The pungent smell of old, rotting linoleum made her want to throw up. She wasn’t a religious woman, but God would be welcomed right now. For the first time in decades, she prayed. 

The shooters’ slow, calculating steps echoed through the now silent hallway outside her classroom door. She was on the third floor of the middle school, which left her nowhere to go, except the window. She had chosen to hide under the desk instead. But as the footsteps crept closer, she wished she would have risked the broken leg.  

It was still early and her students were gathering in the hallway, chattering at their lockers, preparing for the day. She heard their exaggerated laughter, the slamming of lockers…and then the shots. The hallways were densely packed with children and she knew, with sickening certainty, that some had already been gunned down.  

Tears streamed down her face as images of her students lying dead in the hallway flooded her mind. She imagined them piled at the entrance to the staircase, a bottleneck of little bodies. She pressed her hands tighter to her mouth, trying to keep the sob from escaping. Her eyes, wet and wide, locked on the door as the shooters reached it. Her bladder gave way as the knob turned slowly. The door creaked open and the nozzle of an automatic weapon slid into view. 

Instinct took over. She bolted from her hiding spot toward the open window. With the precision of a stunt double, she threw her legs over the lower panel, gripping it with both hands. She hung there, the early sunlight shimmering along her long, auburn hair, trying to steady herself before the fall. She knew it was going to hurt, but not as much as a torrent of bullets tearing through her body. 

Through the glass, she saw the killers burst into the room, guns raised. She let go as they pulled the triggers. A bullet grazed her face, missing her skull by millimeters. She plummeted down the side of the building, praying something below would soften her fall.