The safety drills at my school occurred at an alarming rate.
The campus was new to me, because our family moved to the town less than a week before I showed up for my first day.
I was a Sophomore, whereas my sister - my only sibling - was still in fourth grade. Adjusting had been difficult for both of us.
We moved there because Dad’s corporate employer had promoted him to management. A relocation happened as a result of the acceptance of the new opportunity.
The town had a reputation for its trout fishing and refurbished post office. Neither of which interested anyone my age, to the surprise of no one. The population was less than four thousand. Although the area was scenic, I knew the rest of my teenage years were likely going to be devoid of social activity. The limited entertainment options left me depressed.
The school grounds were at least a mile and a half long, and there were a multitude of different hallways.
My first class of the day was Economics. I showed up after an uncomfortable bus ride where all the students gawked at the new kid. I got lost navigating the corridors. They seemed to wind on forever. The lockers had large spots of rust, and the fluorescent lights flickered.
The teacher of the first period was Mr. Canter. He was a rail-thin man over six feet tall with a mustache in dire need of trimming.
“Why don’t you introduce yourself?” he asked me.
All I wanted to do was be under the radar and not speak to anyone. I was never an attention seeker, but I tried to play along.
“My name is Philip,” I said. “I like to play guitar and watch movies.”
A guffaw in the back. Some sort of mean spirited pupil trying to find anything vulnerable about me to make fun of. echoed throughout the room.
“Shut up and be respectful,” a girl said.
I turned around and saw her. She sat behind me and extended her hand.
“I’m Katherine,” she said. I shook it and sat back down, not eager to continue being everyone’s main focus.
Mr. Canter turned to the whiteboard and drew out a rough schematic. It was a grid or a blueprint for a construction project.
I learned it was the layout of the campus.
“Everyone,” the teacher said, “look inside your desks. You will find the pamphlets. We have five drills today.”
Everyone lifted the top part of their slabs. I did so and found the leaflet, a cover less book with fine print on the inside.
*
In the hallway, I got Katherine’s attention with a wave.
“Thanks for sticking up for me back there,” I said. “I know it wasn’t the easiest choice.”
“I don’t like bullies,” she said.
“What’s up with this?” I asked as I waved the pamphlet in the air.
“We have a ton of required safety drills,” she said. “Each one has its own assignment, and it depends on who gets to it first. Whoever completes it has one less drill to do the next day. Think of it as an Easter egg hunt, but the consequences are greater.”
“Aren’t the drills supposed to be for our own good, so we know what to do in case of a psycho?”
“Yes, but it’s used as a chore to punish us, like everything else around here.”
“Who writes the assignments?”
“Let me know if you find that out,” Katherine said with a shrug.
*
The first drill of the day initiated with a sound that reminded me of horns I had heard in movies about the military. The kind used to wake the soldiers up to train for war. It was so blaring that one student threw up in a corner of the hallway. No one helped him.
I perused the pamphlet. It stated there was a silver watch we should look for in the midst of the simulated evacuation. Something told me it was going to be an item sought after in a competitive way. It was likely valuable.
“Meet by the fountain,” a deep baritone voice stated over the speakers.
I turned to Katherine.
“What happens if I don’t follow that directive and go after the piece of jewelry instead?”
I asked.
“If you get caught by a counselor deviating from the crowd, then you’ll get in detention.”
That did not sound appealing. Neither did the problematic rules. I shook my head and opted not to search for the time piece.
We gathered at the fountain, which was at the very front of the school. The water glistened. A stream came from a piece of stone sculpted into the shape of a miner’s pickax.
The same boy who had gotten sick earlier came out last, and he dragged his feet as he approached us.
Everyone seemed to stare at him with equal parts pity and disgust. I could not figure out why some of the other kids were acting angry with him, so I turned to Katherine and asked her.
“Some of the counselors will punish students who refuse to go along with the drills by making us do extra ones. None of us want that.”
The boy went towards the end of another wing of the school and disappeared around the corner.
That was when I heard a scream. It belonged to a man. An individual in his early thirties dresses in a black suit came out. His hand was on the back of the boy’s neck.
“Who is that?”
“The principal.”
“I chronicle the failures and successes of everyone here,” he said as he glanced at us. ”Sam here went into the trophy hallway leading to the gymnasium. That is unacceptable. If he was searching for the watch, he should have been stealthier. If he was trying to get out of the drill, then shame on him and everything he has ever loved. We will have two more drills today on top of the four which were already pre-planned. You all need to focus on your discipline, your attention to detail. Work on your ability to remain quiet and undetected in times of a potential emergency.”
Groans filled the air before the Principal yelled at us. He asked if we understood and everyone stated they did with an in unison ‘yes.’
*
That night, Dad decided to cook chicken fettuccini. After the garlic bread was set on the table, we started eating.
“The safety drills at the school occurs at an alarming rate,” I said. “I’m used to one per semester, but they make us do it half a dozen times in one day. Did you enroll me in military prep or something?”
“No,” he said with a sheepish grin as he sprinkled mozzarella on the pasta. “These are the times we live in, son. Better to get ready for any and all hostile situations than not.”
“I’m sixteen. So far, there’s never been any lessons. It’s all tactics to barricade and exit. I’ve even heard they want to teach us what they called triage. I had to look up what that word meant, but-“
He put his hand out in a motion to stop me.
“I know what the definition is,” he said. “You have to bear in mind that the unexpected will happen.”
“Why can’t they offer classes that have nothing to do with running in formation? Standing outside like cattle helps no one.”
“I’m in the work force,” he said, and his voice lifted a little to let me know he was not kidding. “We all have to do things we don’t want to do. I have to listen to peoples irrational conning disguised as negotiation. All for the sake of selling them something that I don’t even believe in. It’s not fun. That’s part of life. Deal with it.”
*
The next day, a drill happened at the start of first period. I looked in the pamphlet. One paragraph guided me to look for a textbook about the founders. I had no idea what it was referencing, but I concluded that it had something to do with the library.
As everyone was hurrying outside, I sprinted into the school library. It was a room with an array of glass and dusty shelves.
I began to search through the history section. I guessed it could have been a reference to Adams, Washington, Franklin and Jefferson. I leafed through pages by David McCullough until I felt a shadow loom over me.
I looked up and saw the Principal. He had a stop watch in his hands.
“You have three minutes to browse,” he said. “If you don’t find the item, you will give your classmates another drill and have to stay after school.”
I groaned and kept looking.
Under one shelf near the northeast corner was a doorway. It looked as though it could have been a janitors closet. I twisted the knob expecting it locked, but to my surprise it twisted and I had access. It led me to a chamber with a desk, a chalkboard, and a bunch of laboratory equipment. It made me speculate how this could have been a science class room long ago.
“There is going to be a collapse of everything if you do not escape in time,” a voice said over the loud speaker. It was a pre-recorded monologue of doom by our leader.
I continued looking, and found a newspaper article. It looked like something cut out of the National Inquirer as a joke. It was a piece about a crash landed UFO on the outskirts of town near the train tracks. I pocketed it regardless, because I thought it might be an entertaining read later on.
I exited the room and the Principal stared at me.
I waited for him to say I passed the deadline, but instead he pointed at the door which led outside. I walked out and did not interact with him for the rest of the day.
*
During the lunch hour, Katherine sat across from me. A few students whispered into one another’s ears when they saw us together, but we ignored them. Even at that age, hearsay and gossip and rumors were exhausting. We were too tired from the required walking and running of the drills to put much stock in what others thought.
I showed her the newspaper clipping. She read it over and handed it back to me as she stared off into the distance.
“I’m ready to toss it in the trash,” I said. “But there’s something about ridiculous tabloids that have always interested me.”
“You should ask Lilly,” she said.
“Who’s that?”
“The librarian. She knows the history of this campus and town better than anyone. Rumor is her father was high up in local politics, that he was a mayor. I’ve heard that she was actually disowned later on when she told her Dad that she didn’t want to lie to the public for a living.”
“You believe this could be an actual bit of news?”
“Even if it’s an embellished one, yes. You never know.”
*
Towards the end of the lunch hour, I walked into the library again and approached the front desk. Lilly Dean walked out. I had seen her in the hallways before, but had never interacted with her.
“May I help you?” Lilly asked.
I showed her the newspaper clip. A look of mortification crossed her face, and she asked to speak with me in the back.
“Did you search for any of this information on-line!” Lilly asked as she closed the blinds.
“Not yet.”
“This journalist got shot to death in a parking lot of a convenience store, one that still stands at the edge of town. Whoever killed him was never caught.”
“Weird. That’s sad.”
“Yes it is, but what’s even worse is what he wrote in the lead up to his death, the publishing’s suppressed. He predicted his own demise. He said his refusal to be a part of what he called the integration would be his downfall, and he was right.”
“Integration? With what?”
“The new reality. A construct fashioned by other worldly beings beings. They are hyper intelligent but tyrannical. We must cope with the changes bestowed upon us or get left behind to a peril of nightmarish proportions.”
She saw the confusion on my face.
“This article is real. What the writer did not know before his assassination is how the creatures did not die in the crash. They moved underground, but they still control us. They feed off of the emotion of terror, since it is what keeps them alive.”
As she said this, another drill started. I heard shuffling outside and peeked through the blinds. As the students and teachers moved out towards the football field, I felt my legs start to give out. The earth began to swell, and the soil shifted as though something massive crawled beneath it.